MEDICAL UPDATE: More on AZT


MEDICAL UPDATE: More on AZT

Being Alive; April 1992
presented by Mark Katz MD and reported by Jim Stoecker

As we pass the fifth anniversary of the FDA approval of AZT, we find two more studies that support the widely-held contention that antiviral therapy is better than no antiviral therapy. Both studies conclude that AZT does appear to prolong survival

An Italian study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, followed two groups of persons diagnosed with AIDS. The first group of 160 had an average T-cell count of 189 at the onset of the study and all were treated with AZT. The second group of 112 began with an average CD4 of 229 and did not use any form of antiviral therapy. After two years, 46% of the AZT-treated were still alive, while only 20.5% of the untreated group had survived. The median survival time, the point where 50% of the group were alive and 50% dead, was 21.2 months for the treated vs. 9.6 months for the untreated.

The February Journal of AIDS included a study out of Pittsburgh on the effect of antiviral therapy on a group of hemophiliacs. Hemophiliacs are one of the major groups affected by HIV and about one hundred men were included in the study. Researchers followed the group over about a five year period.

What they found was that 28% of those treated with AZT progressed to AIDS over the period of the study. However, 60% of those untreated with an antiviral developed AIDS over the same time span. Researchers also noted that the median survival after an AIDS diagnosis was 2.8 years for those who began AZT therapy before being diagnosed. For those who went on AZT at the time of diagnosis, the median survival time was 2.1 years. For the untreated patients, however, median survival after diagnosis was found to be only .5 years.
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