The key objectives of CASCADE are to:

• Estimate survival expectations and assess changes over time;
• Assess the impact of adverse drug reactions on survival, particularly if therapy is started close to seroconversion, and monitor changes in the cause of death over time;
• Examine any changes in the characteristics of the HIV virus over time;
• Determine the impact of transmitted resistance, virus subtype, and host genetic factors on response to therapy and clinical outcome;
• Characterise the foci of recent HIV epidemics in Eastern Europe;
• Characterise initial disease progression in new epidemic areas;
• Examine the effect of co-infection on HIV disease and response to therapy;
• Develop new techniques to facilitate the co-ordination of HIV clinical research across European cohorts.

Follow-up data from seroconverters are valuable in being able to relate events to the same time since an individual first became infected with HIV.

Seroconverters thus provide a unique opportunity to study HIV throughout its whole infection period and also enable us to examine the characteristics of recently acquired HIV infection in the population and changes over time.