Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Wall Street Journal - September 6, 2001
Laura Johannes, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
The findings, by scientists at the University of Iowa and Medizinische Hochschule in Hannover, Germany, suggest the virus, called GBV-C, merits study as a potential treatment for infection with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS. The studies are published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
GBV-C, discovered in 1995, was initially dubbed "Hepatitis G virus" because it resembled viruses that cause the potentially fatal liver disease. But subsequent study found the newly discovered virus, present in about 2% of the general population, doesn't seem to cause hepatitis or any other disease.
Study author Daniel J. Diekema, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City, said he fervently hopes the study results won't prompt HIV patients to attempt to infect themselves with GBV-C. "We can never say for sure that the virus is harmless," he said.
Moreover, he said, sharing needles or having sex with infected people could result in exposure to other dangerous pathogens.
Dr. Diekema predicted the surprising results will spark a hunt for a drug which mimics the virus's potent anti-HIV action. "If this is going to lead to a new treatment -- and that's a big 'if' -- it will be by way of understanding the basic mechanism by which the virus inhibits HIV replication," he said. "Once that mechanism is determined, it could be exploited to develop new treatments."
In the first study, which ran from 1988 through 2000, researchers examined blood samples and medical records of 362 HIV-infected patients treated at the University of Iowa. Of the 144 who also happened to be infected with GBV-C, only 41, or 29%, died during the average follow-up period of four years. Meanwhile, 123, or 56%, of the 218 not infected with GBV-C died during the same period.
When the scientists adjusted the data to account for severity of illness at the start of the study, the results were even more remarkable: Patients with GBV-C were nearly four times as likely to survive as those without it. The second study, by German researchers, found the benefit of GBV-C infection was significant even in patients who had access to powerful new HIV drugs which became available in 1996.
Jeffrey Drazen, editor of the New England Journal, said he initially was unsure whether to publish the findings because he worried they might prompt AIDS patients to infect themselves with Hepatitis G. But ultimately he found the results "too tantalizing" to ignore, he said. He warned that further study is needed to verify that GBV-C is really the cause of the salutary effects, rather than just a coincidental bystander for some factor which isn't known yet. "It probably isn't as simple as it seems," he said.
Write to Laura Johannes at laura.johannes@wsj.com1
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