Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - September 5, 2001
What isn't known is exactly how the virus, called GBV-C or hepatitis G, inhibits HIV. Researchers say that if they can figure that out, it could lead to new AIDS treatments.
"If we can identify the path GBV-C is taking to inhibit HIV, then we're well on the way to making this something practical," said one of the researchers, Dr. Jack Stapleton, of the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of Iowa.
In the meantime, they warned patients against intentionally infecting themselves with hepatitis G.
The findings were reported in two studies in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. They confirm earlier studies showing that patients with both HIV and hepatitis G lived longer than those infected with HIV alone.
The hepatitis-G virus, discovered in 1995, doesn't appear to cause hepatitis or any other disease, unlike other blood-borne hepatitis viruses that cause liver damage. Hepatitis-G is found in about 2% of healthy blood donors.
The study at the University of Iowa examined 362 HIV-infected patients treated between 1988 and 1999. About 40%, or 144 patients, also were infected with hepatitis G.
About 29%, or 41 patients infected with hepatitis G, died during four years of follow-up, compared with 56%, or 123 patients, who weren't infected with hepatitis G.
Researchers calculated that HIV-infected people without hepatitis G were nearly four times more likely to die during the four-year period than those with both infections.
In another study, Medical School Hanover in Germany examined 197 HIV patients and found significantly longer survival for the 33 HIV patients with hepatitis G, even after more potent AIDS drugs became available in 1996. Researchers also tested blood infected with hepatitis G and found the greater the degree of hepatitis-G infection, the less HIV was in the blood.
"We don't have any clues how it works at the moment, but I'm quite confident that we will gain this information in the next 12 months," said Dr. Hans L. Tillmann, one of the researchers.
The German researchers did one of the earliest studies showing that hepatitis G may be beneficial for HIV patients. Dr. Tillmann said they were trying to determine whether GBV-C had the same negative effect as hepatitis B and hepatitis C on people with HIV, but found the opposite.
Dr. Steven Wolinsky of Northwestern University Medical School, co-author of an accompanying editorial, said the findings of the two studies need to be kept in perspective. "While we're looking at larger numbers of patients, we still don't really have a specific mechanism, nor have we ruled out any other potential variables that may be responsible," he said.
Dr. Tillmann and Dr. Stapleton strongly warned against intentionally infecting HIV patients with hepatitis G while research continues.
That warning was echoed by Dr. Wolinsky. "We don't really know what the long-term consequences of infection with this virus is," he said. "We also know that it seems to travel with other viruses, and we don't know if it's an accidental tourist or not."
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