Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International; Monday, September 29, 1997 - 1:07 PM EDT
Michael Smith UPI Science News
Roy Gulick of New York University said he started about 30 patients on a three-drug regime nearly two years ago. After a year, he said, 80 percent had undetectable levels of virus in their blood.
Said Gulick, "That was true at 52 weeks and continues after two years of therapy."
He added that the study may answer an important question for AIDS researchers: How well does the immune system bounce back after the virus is suppressed?
Gulick said his patients began the study with a low count of CD4 blood cells, the immune system cells that drop rapidly as the disease progresses. But after a year of therapy, the average number of cells in a milliliter of blood had risen to about 300 from 144 and after 100 weeks, the number had risen still more, to 380.
According to Gulick, after a year, his patients's CD4 counts "had essentially doubled."
The New York researcher explained main point of his study is that starting drugs one after the other is a bad idea.
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