Three percent of patients taking abacavir (Ziagen) develop a systemic hypersensitivity reaction that will go away within a few days when the drug is withdrawn. Restarting the drug can result in potentially fatal conditions that can occur within a few hours.
University of Alabama researchers discover that the risk of clinical disease progression falls in proportion to drops in viral load (plasma HIV-1 RNA) levels during the first six months of treatment, but it rises with a lack of viral load or CD4 response.
Researchers from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center identify a discrete region of the CCR5 co-receptor that may be a gateway used by HIV to enter human cells.
VaxGen Inc. wins federal support for a three-year AIDS vaccine study involving 7,500 healthy human volunteers. The study is the first phase III trial to determine the efficacy of the gp120 vaccine.
More than 270 people across the globe volunteer to participate in the first human clinical trials of a live-attenuated HIV vaccine.
Research indicates that prophylaxis or screening for subclinical Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) infection should be done before initiating protease inhibitor therapy in patients with advanced HIV-1 disease. Inflammatory reactions resulting in local or disseminated MAC can result as significant numbers of functionally competent immune cells become available.
Agouron Pharmaceuticals and Merck & Co. propose that their protease inhibitors—nelfinavir (Viracept) and indinavir (Crixivan), respectively—are as effective when taken twice daily as the thrice-daily regimen currently used.
Australian doctors report that a six-drug regimen including protease inhibitors keeps viral loads below detectable levels in patients, even if they had previously failed other multidrug treatments.
Several researchers report body changes that appear to be related to new combination drug therapies, particularly those that include a protease inhibitor.
Sandy Burchett of Harvard University and others report that triple drug therapies work as well in children as in adults.
Janssen Pharmaceutica division changes the labeling for its antihistamine Hismanal to include warnings about interactions with certain antibiotics, antidepressants and protease inhibitors.
New research published in the Journal of Medical Virology indicates that a high maternal viral load is a risk factor for transmitting HIV to the infant.
Kuang C. Yeh of Merck Research Laboratories and colleagues report that indinavir should be taken with water to lower the risk of nephrolithiasis.
Patients with advanced HIV disease can prevent AIDS progression using ritonavir (Norvir) therapy, according to Canadian and American scientists.
Researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) report an incidence of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and toxic epidermal necrolysis in an HIV positive patient receiving zidovudine (Retrovir), lamivudine (Epivir) and nevirapine (Viramune).
Bruce Walker of Massachusetts General Hospital reports that HIV preferentially infects anti-HIV helper T cells early in disease progression. These cells are eliminated before seroconversion, reducing the body's resistance to the virus.
According to a study published in AIDS, HIV positive patients who are coinfected with hepatitis C virus have a faster progression to AIDS.
The FDA gives final approval to Merck's indinavir, which received marketing clearance via an accelerated approval process two years ago.
According to research, weekly azithromycin (Zithromax) treatment for disseminated MAC infection in AIDS patients is safe and effective.
Daniel Kaufmann and colleagues at the Swiss HIV Cohort Study Data Center report that highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) may still provide benefit to patients who remain viremic.
A study published in the journal AIDS indicates that clinicians should be aware that age is a critical factor in the interpretation of CD4 cell counts in HIV infected children.
The INCAS Study Group report that triple therapy with zidovudine, didanosine (Videx) and nerivapine showed a 2.18 log decrease in viral load, with 51% of subjects achieving viral load levels below 20 copies/ml at week 52.
Researchers at Northwestern University Medical School conclude that the reduction in morbidity and mortality associated with AIDS is due to increases in the use of combination therapies with protease inhibitors.
Swiss researchers raise a number of questions concerning the use of combination therapy in patients with less progression of HIV infection. The authors remind that the use of protease inhibitors often has short-term side effects, such as fat redistribution, peripheral loss of fatty tissue and hyperlipidemia.
Jay Levy reports that people who have been repeatedly exposed to HIV, but have never contracted the virus, have a unique immune response that could serve as a model for future vaccines.
A report published in the journal AIDS indicates that the nadir (lowest) viral load achieved by protease inhibitor therapy strongly correlates with the durability of the therapeutic response.
Researchers from the Institute of Molecular Medicine and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center observe a significant inverse association between HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) frequency and viral load.
A report published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases indicates that AIDS patients who respond to HAART may not need continuous cytomegalovirus (CMV) suppressive therapy after the successful treatment of CMV retinitis.
The Los Angeles Times reports that HIV infected minorities are less likely to take new anti-HIV medication.
UNAIDS reported that 7,000 young people worldwide contract HIV every day, averaging five infections every minute among people 10 to 24 years-old.
AIDS drug assistance programs face a financial crisis with excessive demand due to the high cost of the new protease inhibitor treatment regimens.
A small San Francisco study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine finds that 26% of homosexual men participating were less concerned about contracting HIV since the widespread use of new treatments.
A telephone survey conducted for DuPont Merck Pharmaceuticals of 665 people indicates that 43% of HIV infected people in the U.S. do not adhere to their drug treatment regimen.
Researchers from the University of Minnesota Medical School present two cases of coronary artery disease in patients being treated with protease inhibitors.
C. Birch of the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory concludes that HIV mutations that confer resistance to protease inhibitors are similar between inhibitors.
A researcher at the Virginia Mason Medical Center reports that HAART led to a regression of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) in an HIV infected patient with advanced disease.
A report in AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses indicates that even a temporary reduction in viral replication may have immunological benefits.
Anthony S. Fauci reports that activation of latently HIV infected CD4 cells with interleukin-2 may make the virus within those cells susceptible to antiretroviral therapy, thereby reducing the HIV reservoirs in people who have undetectable viral load levels due to HAART.
Several letters to the editor of the The Lancet discuss abnormal fat redistribution in HIV positive patients on protease inhibitor therapy.
P. Scott Eastman of Chiron Corp. and colleagues report in the Journal of Virology that they have classified an ordered accumulation of mutations in HIV that lead to resistance of ritonavir.
Researchers at the Center for AIDS Research report that viral mutations selected by saquinavir (Fortovase) also exhibit a resistance to other protease inhibitors.
Scientists at Columbia University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute create the first pictures of HIV infecting a host cell using computer-generated imaging based on X-ray data. HIV attaches to one site and then changes shape, exposing another snare that attaches to a second site.
A panel of scientists convened by the International AIDS Society—USA Panel concludes that viral load levels and CD4 lymphocyte counts are the main values that should be employed to determine when to start antiretroviral therapy and subsequent changes in therapy.
David D. Ho calculates that given the estimated decay rate of infected memory CD4 lymphocytes, combination therapy would have to be maintained for a minimum of five to seven years in order to eliminate the latent reservoirs of HIV infection.
Roy M. Gulik and a multicenter team report that the simultaneous initiation of indinavir, zidovudine and lamivudine therapy is superior to sequential initiation.
Researchers report the first two cases of HIV infection—one in San Francisco and the other in Switzerland—with strains that are resistant to reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that African-Americans comprise 57% of new HIV infections in 25 states, despite accounting for only 13% of the total U.S. population.
Researchers at the CDC report that over 30% of health care workers who receive post exposure prophylaxis to lower the risk of HIV infection do not complete the recommended drug regimen.
Allyn Nakashima reports that 35% of patients surveyed who were taking anti-HIV medications responded that they did not completely adhere to their drug regimen. Researchers from the CDC surveyed over 1,200 HIV positive patients at health facilities in 12 states.
Research suggests that combination therapy can be beneficial even when it fails to reduce HIV levels in the bloodstream. It appears that people on the drugs who do not show complete suppression of the virus may still have an increase in CD4 cell counts.
The International AIDS Society-USA Panel issues its updated recommendations for the treatment of HIV through mid-1998. The authors state that there is no defined optimal treatment initiation period, but that there is a growing consensus that early treatment initiation is associated with virologic, immunologic and clinical benefits.
Bruce Walker shows that early combination treatment of HIV infection can help infected patients retain their HIV-specific helper T cells. This may allow patients to end drug therapy in the future.
Fred Valentine reports that patients taking combination therapy who were also inoculated with Immune Response's HIV-1 Immunogen (Remune) vaccine once every three months showed evidence of the reemergence of HIV-specific helper T cells.
Two physicians, R.A. Torres and K.W. Unger, present a poster at the 12th World AIDS Conference indicating the successful treatment of body fat redistribution in five patients receiving HAART with somatropin (Serostim).
An FDA Advisory Panel votes to allow Isis Pharmaceuticals to market formivirsen (Vitravene), the first antisense drug, which is based on technology that prevents genes from performing their functions.
Abbott Laboratories reports it has met with "manufacturing difficulties" involving ritonavir. The problem concerns only the capsule form of the drug and affects how the drug dissolves.
In The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report a case of primary infection with an HIV-1 variant resistant to multiple reverse transcriptase and protease inhibitors in a middle-aged homosexual man.
HIV-infected women develop AIDS quicker then men, according to a study of 650 intravenous drug users by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. The study also reports that HIV infected women with the same viral load as men will generally be much further along in the progression toward AIDS.
The San Francisco gay weekly Bay Area Reporter reports no AIDS deaths, marking the first time in 17 years that the paper has not had any HIV-related deaths to report.
An Australian team of researchers reports the development of cryptococcal meningitis in three patients with advanced HIV infection following initiation of HAART.
Scientists at Abbott Laboratories report the firm's protease inhibitor, ABT-378—a compound that Abbott hopes to be a second generation protease inhibitor—appears to be safe and effective in patients with HIV when the compound is combined with ritonavir.
Epidemiologist and medical statistician Richard Peto of Oxford University announces that HIV and tobacco use are the leading causes of death worldwide.
In Nature Medicine, French researchers report the discovery of a new HIV-1 isolate that cannot be categorized in any previous group.
DuPont's pharmaceuticals division receives FDA approval to market its once daily AIDS drug efavirenz (Sustiva).
Abbott Laboratories announces supplies of the capsule form of ritonavir will run out within the next month.
Merck announces it is halting research on a twice daily regimen of indinavir.
In a commentary in The Lancet, Jay A. Levy of the University of California School of Medicine questions the need for early treatment of HIV infection. "Would we not serve infected people better by reserving certain therapies and administering them at a time when their use is clearly required?"
An early access program provides the investigational protease inhibitor amprenavir (Agenerase) to certain HIV positive patients.
AIDS groups protest DuPont's pricing of efavirenz by dumping empty pill bottles from a black coffin.
A study by researchers at the Albany Medical Center indicates that prescription mistakes are more common for HIV patients as compared to other hospital patients.
Agouron announces patients with AIDS may soon be able to take two doses of nelfinavir instead of three.
Spanish researchers report in The Lancet a lack of T cell proliferative response to HIV-1 antigens in patients receiving HAART for up to one year.
Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital take one HIV infected patient off combination therapy to determine if his immune system will be able to actively control his infection. The volunteer has been receiving anti-HIV medication for about a year and a half and began treatment almost immediately after infection.
GlaxoWellcome submits a New Drug Application to the FDA for the protease inhibitor amprenavir.
Researchers for the AIDS Clinical Trials Group Study 343 Team report that triple drug therapy with indinavir, lamivudine and zidovudine better sustains the suppression of viral load in HIV positive patients than maintenance therapy with indinavir alone or a combination of zidovudine and lamivudine after induction therapy with the triple combination. The French Trilege Study Team and Dutch ADAM study also confirmed that the use of induction therapy followed by less intense maintenance therapy was not a useful treatment option.
The Center for AIDS: Hope and Remembrance project takes a controversial public stance supporting DuPont's pricing of efavirenz.
Members of ACT-UP storm DuPont's New York offices demanding the company cut the price of efavirenz.
Stanley Riddell and Philip Greenberg at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center devise a method to isolate specific T cells from the blood and grow large amounts in the laboratory, without losing the cell specificity.
A federal panel recommends that abacavir, be approved for adults and children. The FDA's Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee recommendation comes amid concerns about serious and sometimes deadly allergic reactions in about 3% of patients.
The experimental drug T-20 appears to reduce the level of HIV in patients's blood by as much as 99% according to researchers at the University of Alabama.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease report that HIV positive women may have a higher risk of progressing to AIDS than HIV infected men with the same viral load.
Research conducted by Jay A. Levy of the University of California and others shows that enhanced CD8 suppression of HIV replication appears to be an important characteristic of long-term non-progression of HIV.
Researchers report that perinatal transmission of HIV can be reduced through the use of an abbreviated zidovudine regimen initiated intra partum or in the first 48 hours of life.
A study in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that zidovudine administered to the child soon after exposure, but not the mother, had a preventative effect.
MediChem Research enters into a joint venture agreement with the government of Sarawak, Malaysia, to research the leaves from the rare bintangor tree as a potential AIDS drug. The drug, Calanolide A, prevents replication of the virus in laboratory tests and is well-tolerated by HIV negative patients.
Three HIV infected patients appear to have had virtually all of the virus cleared from their system following treatment with standard anti-HIV drugs and interleukin-2. Scientists are unable to grow live HIV from 330 million immune cells taken from the three patients.
An advisory panel for the FDA recommends approval of the Panretin gel, produced by Ligand Pharmaceuticals, for patients with AIDS-associated KS. However, the skin lesion treatment was not recommended as a primary treatment.
Scientists isolate an HIV-1 strain that reportedly can confer resistance to most or all nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.
According to a study appearing in the American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care, cigarette smoking may suppress the percentage and absolute number of CD4 and CD8 cells in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in HIV positive patients, which may in turn cause a decrease in lung defenses against infection.
The Swiss HIV Cohort Study finds that the administration of HAART to asymptomatic HIV positive patients early in the course of infection can help preserve pre-therapy levels of immune function.
The FDA approves nevirapine, a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI), for use in HIV infected children.
Pharmaceutical companies are required to provide physicians with specific information on the effects of medications on children, according to new rules from the FDA.
A study of 202 HIV infected patients finds that about 40% of prescriptions for HIV patients had incorrect dosing schedules, suboptimal dosages and/or protease inhibitors ordered as monotherapy.
Wesley Sundquist of the University of Utah and associates report that they are able to replicate—for the first time—cone-shaped structures similar to HIV's core.
Efavirenz, which received FDA approval nearly three months ago, is included in the Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents. The drug is listed in column A, which lists "preferred" antiviral therapies for treating established HIV infection.
ÆGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Roxane Laboratories, Inc., iMetrikus, Inc., the National Library of Medicine, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 1999. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
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