12 Feb 2009 08:00 AM
HIV-Positive People Might Benefit From Early Treatment, Study Presented At CROI Indicates
HIV-positive people who begin drug regimens soon after infection might have better treatment outcomes than those who delay taking medication, according to a study presented Monday at the 16th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Montreal, Canada, Bloomberg reports. Radjin Steingrover of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam presented the study. Peter Leone -- HIV/AIDS researcher at the University of North Carolina and medical director of the North Carolina Department of Health's HIV department -- said that the study is the first to demonstrate that immediate treatment might benefit people living with HIV.
During the first few weeks after contracting HIV, often called the "acute phase," HIV grows rapidly in the body. To determine the benefits of treating people during the acute phase, the researchers provided early treatment for six to 15 months to 55 HIV-positive people and did not provide early treatment to another group of 47 people. The researchers found that the 55 HIV-positive people who received treatment soon after infection generally progressed to taking long-term treatment after an average of 45 months. The 47 patients who did not receive early treatment generally progressed to long-term treatment after 32 months. According to Steingrover, the study suggests that immediate HIV treatment can delay the need for long-term drugs by about one year.
"To the question of whether this is beneficial [to the patient], I think the answer is yes," Steingrover said. "Until now, the benefits to the patient have just been theoretical," Leone said. According to Bloomberg, previous recommendations and findings for when to begin treatment range from CD4+ T cell levels of 350 copies per milliliter of blood to 500. According to Bloomberg, health workers often encounter difficulty in detecting HIV at the earliest stages because the immune proteins responding to the virus do not typically appear until a few weeks after infection…
During the first few weeks after contracting HIV, often called the "acute phase," HIV grows rapidly in the body. To determine the benefits of treating people during the acute phase, the researchers provided early treatment for six to 15 months to 55 HIV-positive people and did not provide early treatment to another group of 47 people. The researchers found that the 55 HIV-positive people who received treatment soon after infection generally progressed to taking long-term treatment after an average of 45 months. The 47 patients who did not receive early treatment generally progressed to long-term treatment after 32 months. According to Steingrover, the study suggests that immediate HIV treatment can delay the need for long-term drugs by about one year.
"To the question of whether this is beneficial [to the patient], I think the answer is yes," Steingrover said. "Until now, the benefits to the patient have just been theoretical," Leone said. According to Bloomberg, previous recommendations and findings for when to begin treatment range from CD4+ T cell levels of 350 copies per milliliter of blood to 500. According to Bloomberg, health workers often encounter difficulty in detecting HIV at the earliest stages because the immune proteins responding to the virus do not typically appear until a few weeks after infection…
