A new study from the Canadian Observational Cohort (CANOC) Collaboration, housed at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE), has found the overall life expectancy of people living with HIV who have initiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) to be 65 years of age. Findings from the study demonstrate a notable improvement since the early years of the HIV epidemic, but life expectancy for those with HIV remains below that of the general Canadian population.

In the study, decreased life expectancy was observed for women, participants with a history of injection drug use, individuals with Aboriginal ancestry, and those initiating ART in earlier time periods. The gender-based differences observed in this analysis reflect previous CANOC findings identifying poorer HIV-related treatment outcomes among women, compared with men.

This study also observed decreased life expectancy among participants initiating ART with CD4 counts lower than 350 cells/µl. This finding reinforces current BC-CfE treatment guidelines, which recommend that ART should be initiated for all people living with HIV regardless of CD4 count, to ensure the best long-term clinical response.