Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - August 4, 1995
Paul Recer, The Associated Press
Scientists at the Wellcome Research Laboratories in Kent, England, said that when AZT is taken with 3TC, the combination overcomes the problem of viral resistance that reduces the effectiveness of either drug taken alone.
In 24-week-long tests on patients infected with the AIDS virus, the combination caused a drop in the amount of viral infection and a rise in the number of lymphocytes, called CD4 cells, that are the target of the virus.
CD4 cells protect the body from infection, and it is their loss that causes AIDS patients to contract infection so easily.
"The combination of AZT and 3TC is the most efficacious pair of drugs tried to date with respect to the magnitude and duration of changes in CD4 cell number and viral load," researchers report this week in Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Both drugs act on the virus by stopp8ing its reproduction, but a laboratory analysis of the combination found that 3TC prevented the AIDS virus from developing a resistance to AZT.
AZT, or zidovudine, is the most widely used antiviral drug against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The drug 3TC has been in two clinical trials in Europe and two in the United States, but now is available only for experimental use.
Though considered the primary drug for treating AIDS virus, AZT is of only limited value by itself because HIV viruses eventually develop a resistance to the chemical action of the drug.
Researchers have been experimenting with AZT in combination with other anti-viral drugs, but none of the combinations has worked as well as AZT-3TC, the researchers said in Science.
The report said lab studies show that the combination works because 3TC is able to prevent the virus from making the molecular changes that would allow strains to become resistant to AZT. This happens even though the virus quickly develops resistance to 3TC.
"This is a very important finding," said Dr. Jeffrey Laurence, an AIDS doctor at New York hospital and the senior science consultant for the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
Copyright 1995/The Associated Press. Reproduced with permission. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Permissions Desk, The Associated Press, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020.
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