Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Sunday, September 27, 1998
Ed Susman, UPI Science Writer
Canadian researchers say today that even though clinical and laboratory science would predict such an approach would have no effect, in a substantial number of patients the multi-drug regimen was able to suppress the virus.
Dr. Julio Montaner of the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Vancouver, says, "We gave these patients anything that made sense."
Montaner says patients were given drugs from various classes of antiretroviral drugs, including as many as four nucleoside analogues, two protease inhibitors, two non-nucleoside analogues and hydroxyurea, an immune system stimulator.
At the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego, Montaner explains that his study began when one-long term AIDS patient experienced ominous increases in blood viral levels. Doctors had no more answers for the patient.
Montaner says, "We did the unthinkable and threw the kitchen sink at him to prove nothing could be done. Immediately he proved us wrong and circulating virus in his blood fell to undetectable levels."
In his study of 83 patients, about 40 percent have achieved undetectable viral levels.
Montaner says, "The idea of recycling drugs in patients hasn't been studied enough."
Dr. John Mellors of the University of Pittsburgh, who chaired the session on AIDS salvage treatments, says Montaner's study "was the most encouraging paper we have heard this morning."
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