The AIDS Beacon™

Panel members debated the pros and cons of starting early Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) in a discussion last week at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria.

Previous guidelines advised patients to begin HAART after the onset of AIDS symptoms or when their CD4 (white blood cell) count dropped below 200 cells per milliliter.

In 2009, however, the World Health Organization released new guidelines recommending that treatment start when CD4 counts drop to 350 cells per milliliter. Proponents argued that this number better protects patients from long-term immune system…

A study published last week in AIDS Patient Care and STDs found that Trizivir (zidovudine/lamivudine/abacavir) may help people with HIV simplify their long-term maintenance antiretroviral therapy (ART) routine, decreasing harmful side effects and making the drug regimen easier to follow.

However, the study authors caution that their results, which include only 48 weeks of trial data, are still preliminary. Longer follow-up periods will be necessary to ensure the regimen will be safe and effective long-term.

Currently, the standard treatment regimen for HIV includes at least three antiretroviral medications from two…

An article published last week in PLoS Pathogens argues that combining antiretroviral therapy with a short course of immunotoxins, which are used in certain types of chemotherapy, could suppress HIV levels to the point that antiretrovirals are no longer needed long-term.

“Ultimately, immunotoxins will be of value in HIV treatment only if they can enable patients to stop HAART for prolonged periods, sufficient to provide a meaningful quality of life benefit,” wrote the authors.

Although still preliminary, the authors believe the idea is promising enough that it should be tested…

On Tuesday, March 22, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an expansion of current policy to cover facial injections for beneficiaries suffering from hollowed cheeks as a result of HIV treatment.

Hollowed cheeks result from a condition known as facial lipodystrophy syndrome (LDS). LDS is a combination of localized fat loss (lipoatrophy), localized fat gain (lipodystrophy), and other metabolic abnormalities.

When highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) was introduced in the 1990s, patients began to experience LDS as a side effect of the therapy. Currently 13 to 38…

This month, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have released a report showing that the drug minocycline, commonly used as an acne treatment, is also quite effective against latent HIV-infected T cells (type of white blood cell).

One reason HIV remains such a medical challenge is because the virus is capable of infecting two groups of cells: active, growing T cells, and resting T cells.

Infection of active T cells leads to extensive viral replication and proliferation of the disease. The current highly active antiretroviral…

A recent study by the IrsiCaixa Aids Research Institute published in Nature Medicine found that Isentress (raltegravir) intensification in individuals undergoing Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) can decrease active HIV replication and reduce immune activation.

Isentress is an integrase inhibitor that prevents insertion of viral DNA into human DNA, thus inhibiting the replication process.

With the use of Isentress, researchers were able to recognize the presence of HIV. This is because Isentress forms unique circular viral DNA when it blocks viral DNA from integration into human DNA. …

A recent study published in the journal AIDS has found that HIV-positive individuals undergoing HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy) have shown no decline in the incidence of anal cancer.

Anal cancer is a disease in which cancer cells form inside the anal tissue lining. Common symptoms include bleeding, lumps, or pain in the anal area. Additionally, anal discharge and itching are other signs of anal cancer.

The incidence of anal cancer is increasingly common in HIV-positive individuals.

According to a study in Oncology Reports, individuals with HIV are 30…

A study by Canadian researchers published in the December 1 edition of the journal Clinical Infection Diseases reports that there has been a significant decrease in the rates of resistance to HIV-1 drugs among patients treated for the disease.

Researchers attribute the drop in drug resistance to the successful use of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), which is considered to be the combination of at least three antiretroviral drugs to maximally suppress HIV infection.

This study is of particular interest because to date there have been few studies evaluating changes…

Two articles published by American researchers in the January issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS) showed that HIV-infected adults and children are living longer than they did in the mid-1990s.

One study monitored mortality rates and causes of death in HIV-infected children from 1993 to 2006, a period of time when highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) was introduced.

The other study estimated life expectancy and average years of life lost in adults following HIV diagnosis.

Researchers found that pediatric death rates significantly decreased between 1994 and…

A study published Wednesday in the American Journal of Psychiatry shows that HIV-positive individuals experienced reduced rates of suicide after the initiation of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).

The suicide rate among HIV-positive individuals nonetheless remains higher than the general population even after the introduction of HAART.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), HIV-infected patients in some countries are eight times more likely to commit suicide. Typically, individuals are most at risk when they become aware of their status and when particularly ill.

A team of researchers in Switzerland…