Lack of association of Chlamydia pneumoniae with cardiovascular diseases in virologically suppressed HIV patients

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major public health problem in developed countries with over 17 million deaths per year. In the last decade, several infectious agents rather than any single pathogen, including Chlamydia pneumoniae and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), have been shown to contribute to the development of atherosclerosis and subsequent cardiovascular events by inducing systemic inflammation and/or acting directly on the vascular wall. For the first time, we evaluated C. pneumonia DNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from HIV patients by real-time polymerase chain reaction in order to shed light on C. pneumonia as a co-factor with HIV in the development of CVDs. C. pneumonia DNA was not detected in our virologically suppressed HIV patients (< 37 copies/mL). This finding may be related to high CD4+T cell count (> 500 cells/mu l) found in HIV patients suggesting functional cell-mediated immunity as a fundamental mechanism for the clearance of chlamydial infection in this population. Larger studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis.