Amniocentesis and mother-to-child human immunodeficiency virus transmission in the Agence Nationale de Recherches sur le SIDA et les Hepatites Virales French Perinatal Cohort

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to investigate whether performing an amniocentesis increased mother-to-child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 (MTCT). STUDY DESIGN: We studied HIV-1 infected mothers and their children enrolled in the multicenter French Perinatal HIV Cohort from 1985 to 2006. RESULTS: One hundred sixty-six amniocenteses were performed among 9302 singleton pregnancies, the proportion increasing from 1.0% before 2001 to 4.7% in 2005-2006. Use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was more frequent in the amniocentesis group (58.4% vs 33.2%). MTCT tended to be higher in the amniocentesis group, among mothers who received no antiretroviral agents (25.0%; 3/12 vs 16.2%; 343/2113; P = .41) as well as among mothers receiving zidovudine monotherapy or a double-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor combination (6.1%; 3/49 vs 3.3%; 117/3556; P = .22), but the difference was not significant. Among 81 mothers receiving HAART, there was no case of MTCT. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that amniocentesis is not a major risk factor for mother-to-child transmission in mothers treated with effective antiretroviral therapy.