The Washington Blade; Friday, November 21, 1997
Lisa Keen
Formalizing on reports he began making at various scientific conferences earlier this year, researcher Robert Siliciano and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University reported in Science that 18 patients who had been on triple-drug therapy for up to two and a half years still had virus in certain immune cells even though the measurements of virus in their blood had dropped below detection. The amount of the virus in these cells did not decrease with increasing time on therapy, even in patients who adhered carefully to their regimens. Joining Johns Hopkins in the research was David Ho and his colleagues at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York.
Until this year, research and calculations by Ho had suggested triple-drug therapies might be able to completely eliminate HIV from the body in about three years. Ho and others also believed that what virus did remain in the body might be defective and incapable of replication. And they hypothesized that starting treatment early might prevent HIV from settling into certain immune cells. But Siliciano's study found that the virus in these immune cells is capable of replication and that the virus had settled into these immune cells even in patients who began therapy within 10 weeks of their first signs of being infected.
Every protease inhibitor was being used by at least one of the patients, and a few patients were on two -- either simultaneously or sequentially. Their time on a triple-drug therapy ranged from a month and a half months to two and a half years, with the average being about a year.
A second study in Science, led by another co-author on the Hopkins study, Doug Richman at the University of California at San Diego, made similar findings in a group of six patients and also found that triple-drug therapies can work in at least some patients for as long as two and a half years without HIV developing a resistance to them.
As a summary editorial in Science explained the meaning of these latest reports: "Researchers say these results clearly indicate that it is much too early to consider taking patients off combination therapy."
In brief...
FREE HOME TEST KIT: The makers of the Home Access Express test kit are offering a free HIV test kit on World AIDS Day. People interested in obtaining the free kit can call 1-800-HIV-TEST to request one. The Home Access Health Care Corporation says that for every test requested, it will also donate an additional test kit to the National AIDS Fund for distribution to AIDS service organizations. Calls requesting the free kit must be made on World AIDS Day, Monday, Dec. 1.
PROTEASE SYMPOSIUM DEC. 3: The Carl Vogel Center is sponsoring a symposium Wednesday, Dec. 3, from 6:30-9:30 to discuss "Protease Inhibitors and Dietary Strategies for Reaching Optimum Efficacy." The forum is being done in collaboration with the D.C. chapter of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care and will include dinner. It will take place at the Hotel Sofitel, and is being supported by a grant from Roche Laboratories.
VACCINE PROSPECTS GLOOMY: David Baltimore, head of the U.S. HIV vaccine research committee, said in a lecture Nov. 17 that it will likely take decades to develop a vaccine that can stop HIV disease in a human. According to Reuters news service, Baltimore also said that it is extremely unlikely that a vaccine can be developed to protect a human from becoming infected.
HEPATITIS NUMBERS RISING: Two health organizations issued warnings Nov. 18 that the number of cases of hepatitis are "rampant and on the rise." According to the American Liver Foundation and the American Digestive Health Foundation, cases of hepatitis C are now more common than cases of HIV.
GUIDELINES ON THE WEB: Anyone who hasn't read the guidelines released by federal health experts in June about how to treat HIV infection can now read them on the Web at www.hivatis.org.
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