One year ago, the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) launched REPRIEVE – The Randomized Trial to Prevent Vascular Events in HIV study. The trial is designed to investigate among people living with HIV whether statin use can prevent a very common comorbidity – cardiovascular disease. To date, the clinical trial has enrolled nearly 1,200 participants living with HIV across approximately 85 trial sites.
"The success of antiretroviral therapy has led to people with HIV living longer. Yet people living with HIV are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, such as heart attacks and strokes,” said Dr. Steven Grinspoon, Co-Principal Investigator of the Clinical Coordinating Center for REPRIEVE, Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Program in Nutritional Metabolism, and Professor of Medicine and Director of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at Harvard Medical School. “In fact, 15 percent of deaths among people living with HIV are related to heart disease, making the need to identify prevention strategies crucial.”