MEDICAL UPDATE: Data on Immune Responses

MEDICAL UPDATE: Data on Immune Responses

Being Alive Newsletter; July 1992
Dr. Robert Schooley and reported by Walt Senterfitt

What are some the data behind this concept of a relationship between immune response and viral burden? Some of the first data correlating viral burden (i.e. the amount of HIV present in the blood cells and serum) came from Dr. David Ho's lab when he was here at Cedars-Sinai and UCLA. In cross-sectional analysis, he showed a hundred-fold increase in viral burden between asymptomatic and ARC patients and again between ARC and AIDS. Similar results were reported by Dr. Larry Corey's group in Seattle, showing a strong correlation between viral burden, CD4 cell loss, and symptoms of immune decline.

Assuming the HIV-specific immune response is responsible for the long period of latency, the most important research task is to figure out which elements of this response are the most important and which can be manipulated to sustain a successful response longer or indefinitely.

Do we have evidence that the HIV-specific immune response actually kills HIV? Once again, some of the best data come from David Ho. First he showed that the effect of AZT in HIV-infected plasma is to reduce the viral load about ten-fold. Then he looked at primary HIV infection (i.e. right after a person is first infected with HIV), and found a comparable viral load to that of very advanced disease. But in primary infection, the body (or host) rapidly brings that viral load down a thousand-fold. In other words, the body's own early immune response is 100 times more powerful against the virus than is AZT at its best.

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