PLoS ONE (Jan 2014)

Neurocognitive function in HIV-infected patients: comparison of two methods to define impairment.

  • Alejandro Arenas-Pinto,
  • Alan Winston,
  • Wolfgang Stöhr,
  • John Day,
  • Rebecca Wiggins,
  • Say Pheng Quah,
  • Jonathan Ainsworth,
  • Sue Fleck,
  • David Dunn,
  • Alex Accoroni,
  • Nicholas I Paton,
  • PIVOT Trial Team

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103498
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 7
p. e103498

Abstract

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ObjectiveTo compare two definitions of neurocognitive impairment (NCI) in a large clinical trial of effectively-treated HIV-infected adults at baseline.MethodsHopkins Verbal Learning test-Revised (HVLT-R), Colour Trail (CTT) and Grooved Pegboard (GPT) tests were applied exploring five cognitive domains. Raw scores were transformed into Z-scores and NCI defined as summary NPZ-5 score one standard deviation below the mean of the normative dataset (i.e. ResultsMean NPZ-5 score was -0.72 (SD 0.98) and 178/548 (32%) participants had NPZ-5 scores ConclusionControlling for differential contribution of individual test-scores on the overall performance and the level of correlation between components of the test battery used appear to be important when testing cognitive function. These two factors are likely to affect both summary scores and categorical scales in defining cognitive impairment.Trial registrationEUDRACT: 2007-006448-23 and ISRCTN04857074.