The protocol was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Buffalo

tively. Undetectable values of IL-8 were recorded as the specified minimal detectable 21825001 level of 3.5 pg/mL. Intra-assay variance on optical densities was 11% and 9% for IL-8 and TNFa respectively. Soluble ICAM-1, VCAM-1, E-Selectin, and P-Selectin were measured by a beadbased multiplex kit on a Luminex-100 193022-04-7 site analyzer. Statistics Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS 11.5 and GraphPad Prism 5.03. Medians were compared using Mann Whitney’s test. Correlation analyses were performed using Spearman’s rank correlation. For comparing the number of patients above the 75th percentile of a given parametre against the number of patients below Chi squared test was used. P values,0.05 were considered significant. Platelets and sP-Selectin Levels of platelets and sP-Selectin and the correlation between platelet and sP-Selectin concentrations in controls and HIV infected patients are shown in Results Patients Of the 70 HIV infected patients who participated in the study 64 were male and 68 were Caucasians. The median age was 55 years. The median baseline CD4 count was 0.196109/L and the median CD4 count at follow up was 0.636109/L. The patients had been diagnosed with HIV for a median of 230 months and had received cART for a median of 150 months. Nineteen patients were diagnosed with AIDS defining events and five had chronic hepatitis C infection. Association to Residual Viraemia and Current Total CD4 Count Within the group of HIV infected patients b2-microglobulin, IL-8, TNFa, sICAM-1, sVCAM-1, sE-Selectin, and sP-Selectin did not correlate to current total CD4 count or levels of residual viraemia. When separating the patients into groups according to being above or below highest control value there was no correlation between b2-microglobulin, IL-8, and sICAM-1 and viraemia or current CD4 count. 2 Vascular Inflammation in Long Term Treated HIV Cardiovascular Risk Factors When comparing the HIV infected patients who 20032260 had a history of smoking with those who had never smoked, the smokers had slightly higher levels of sICAM-1 but similar levels of b2-microglobulin, IL-8, TNFa, sVCAM-1, sESelectin, and sP-Selectin. When stratifying the HIV infected patients according to diagnosed hypertension, ongoing statin-treatment or treatment with abacavir containing cART regimes no differences in any of the investigated markers were revealed. When separating the patients into two groups according to b2microglobulin, TNFa, IL-8, and sICAM-1 being above or below the 75th percentile and comparing the percentage of patients with hypertension, history of smoking, and statin treatment, no differences were found apart from the previously found correlation between smoking and elevated sICAM-1. Discussion The principal findings of the present study were: i) Even after very long term cART, HIV infected patients had discrete signs of persisting systemic and vascular inflammation compared to healthy controls assessed by levels of b2-microglobulin, IL-8 and sICAM-1, and ii) markers of inflammation were not associated with residual viraemia, current total CD4 count or cardiovascular risk factors except for a moderate association between smoking and higher sICAM-1 levels. b2-microglobulin levels fall during the first months of cART, but the present study showed persistently increased levels of b2microglobulin in HIV infected patients compared to controls after long term cART. TNFa levels are elevated in untreated HIV infected patients and are diminishes by cART. In the presen