Cocaine/crack use is not associated with fibrosis progression measured by AST-to-Platelet Ratio Index in HIV-HCV co-infected patients: a cohort study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Cocaine and crack use has been associated with HIV and HCV infections, but its consequences on HCV progression have not been well established. We analyzed the impact of cocaine/crack use on liver fibrosis progression in a cohort of HIV-HCV co-infected patients. METHODS: A Canadian multicenter prospective cohort study followed 1238 HIV-HCV co-infected persons every 6 months between 2003 and 2013. Data were analyzed from 573 patients with positive HCV RNA, not on HCV treatment, without significant liver fibrosis (AST-to-Platelet Ratio Index (APRI) <1.5) or history of end-stage liver disease at baseline, and having at least two study visits. Recent cocaine/crack use was defined as use within 6 months of cohort entry. Incidence rates of progression to significant fibrosis (APRI ≥ 1.5) were determined according to recent cocaine/crack use. Cox Proportional Hazards models were used to assess the association between time-updated cocaine/crack use and progression to APRI ≥ 1.5 adjusting for age, sex, HCV duration, baseline ln(APRI), and time-updated alcohol abuse, history of other drug use and CD4+ cell count. RESULTS: At baseline, 211 persons (37%) were recent cocaine/crack users and 501 (87%) ever used cocaine/crack. Recent users did not differ from non-recent users on gender, age, and CD4+ T-cell count. Over 1599 person-years of follow up (522 PY in recent users, 887 PY in previous users and 190 PY in never users),158 (28%) persons developed significant fibrosis (9.9/100 PY; 95% CI, 8.3-11.4); 56 (27%) recent users (10.7/100 PY; 7.9-13.5), 81 (28%) previous users (9.1/100 PY; 7.1-11.1), and 21 (29%) never users (11.1/100 PY; 6.3-15.8). There was no association between ever having used or time-updated cocaine/crack use and progression to APRI ≥ 1.5 (adjusted HR (95%CI): 0.96 (0.58, 1.57) and 0.88;(0.63-1.25), respectively). CONCLUSIONS: We could not find evidence that cocaine/crack use is associated with progression to advanced liver fibrosis in our prospective study of HIV-HCV co-infected patients.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".