Cofactors and markers of disease progression in human immunodeficiency virus infection

The identification of factors which are related to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease progression, either by a direct interaction with HIV to increase the rate of disease progression or by providing an indication of an infected individual's likely prognosis, can have great value when understanding HIV pathogenesis and in the development of novel therapeutic approaches. This paper describes the roles of the CD4 cell count and the viral load as markers of disease progression and discusses the recent findings on chemokine receptors in HIV infection. Our current knowledge on these factors is summarized and unresolved statistical issues are highlighted.