Ferreira GR, Santos-Oliveira JR, Silva-Freitas ML, et al. - The coinfection of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) with HIV virus results in a drastic increase in VL relapses, treatment failure and mortality. Researchers aimed at determining the biomarkers linked with disease severity that may aid in clinical management of patients with VL-HIV/AIDS.

• Researchers analyzed several markers in sera from patients with VL/HIV presenting different clinical outcomes.

• The probability of death calculated using a score set system derived by the Kala-Cal software defined disease severity.

• Findings suggest association of soluble CD14 (sCD14), TNF, and migration inhibitory factor with death in VL-HIV/AIDS.

• Independent of LPS levels, acute-phase protein sCD14 predicted VL/HIV severity.

• For VL-HIV severity and death, the only independent and a powerful predictor is sCD14.