ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To compare mortality of wasting syndrome (WS) versus Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) in AIDS patients reported in Puerto Rico after controlling for gender, age, and CD4 levels. METHODS: AIDS patients for which a diagnosis of WS (n = 1,180) or PCP (n = 765), who were reported to the AIDS Surveillance System of Puerto Rico between 1989 and 1992, were used to analyze the mortality risk among these diagnoses using a Cox's proportional hazard regression model. RESULTS: Cox model showed that WS patients had a 14 per cent to 33 per cent reduction in mortality risk compared with PCP patients after adjusting for gender and age (95 per cent confidence level). Mortality risks for males were 18 per cent (95 per cent CI: 1 per cent, 39 per cent) higher than females risk after adjusting for AIDS defining condition and age. It was shown that a decrease in 100 CD4 cells increased the mortality by 37 per cent (95 per cent CI: 16 per cent, 62 per cent) after adjusting for AIDS defining conditions, gender, and age.