Patients with HIV infections are living longer than they used to, according to a new study published in The Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and reported in STAT.
The study's researchers reviewed 252 autopsy reports for adult HIV patients from Bellevue Hospital in New York City from 1984-2016. They found the patients' mean age of death rose from 35 in 1984 to 54 in 2010. The proportion of people with infections tied to HIV, such as hepatitis C, also declined from 80 percent in the 1980s to 30 percent in 2016.
The year with the most autopsies was 1993, and the number of autopsies per year declined thereafter. The trend corresponds with the time at which more HIV medications became available.