MacDonald DM, et al. - Researchers examined how baseline biomarker data are associated with cross-sectional lung function and subsequent decline in lung function in HIV-positive persons. They modelled lung function in all START pulmonary substudy participants who had baseline biomarker data and good-quality spirometry. Longitudinal analyses were performed only on participants with at least one good-quality follow-up spirometry test. The inclusion of 903 included participants was done. The baseline median age of the participants was 36 years; CD4+ cell count was 647 cells/μl, and 28.5% were current smokers. Findings revealed worse cross-sectional lung function in correlation with commonly available biomarkers, in particular markers of systemic inflammation, among HIV-positive persons with early HIV infection and baseline CD4+ T-cell counts more than 500 cells/μl. However, these markers were not noted to be associated with subsequent lung function decline in these patents.