Peripheral blood <scp>CD4</scp> ⁺ T cell count predicts recurrence of condyloma acuminatum after photodynamic therapy in <scp>HIV</scp> ‐positive patients

Few studies have reported postoperative relapse of condyloma acuminatum (CA) after 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive patients.The clinical data of HIV-positive CA patients treated with ALA-PDT from October 2018 to December 2019 were analyzed retrospectively. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression was used to analyze the variables related to postoperative recurrence. Pearson correlation test was employed to analyze the correlation between CD4+ T cell count and postoperative recurrence rate. Kaplan-Meier method was used to compare the CA recurrence after ALA-PDT in low CD4 group and high CD4 group.A total of 38 HIV-positive patients with CA were included in the study. Among them, 26 patients experienced CA recurrence within 6 months, and the recurrence rate was 68.4%. CD4+ T cell count was 187.0 (79.0-596.0) cells/uL in relapsed patients and 406.0 (89.0-612.0) cells/uL in non-relapsed patients, showing a statistically significant difference (P=0.005). Pearson correlation coefficient analysis revealed a negative correlation between CD4+ T cell count and postoperative recurrence rate (P = 0.005, r = -0.443). Univariate regression analysis showed that CD4+ T cell count was correlated with postoperative recurrence, hazard ratio (HR) was 0.99 [95% Confidence interval (CI) = 0.99-1.0, P=0.012]. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that with the low CD4+ T cell count as the reference, the high CD4+ T cell count was negatively correlated with postoperative recurrence (HR=0.09, 95% CI 0.01- 0.87, P =0.038).Peripheral blood CD4+ T cell count can predict the CA recurrence rate after ALA-PDT in HIV-positive patients.