HAART
Mothers receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to treat HIV-1 infection are less likely than untreated mothers to transmit the virus to their newborns through breastfeeding, according to a new study. The findings, now available online in the Nov.
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GAINESVILLE, Fla. ? Focusing HIV drug development on immune cells called macrophages instead of traditionally targeted T cells could bring us closer to eradicating the disease, according to new research from University of Florida and five other institutions.
ATS 2009, SAN DIEGO? New HIV therapies have prolonged lives and improved health for patients with HIV, but the treatments have also brought the longer-term effects of the disease into sharper focus.
A potential treatment for HIV may one day help people who are not responding to Anti-Retroviral Therapy, suggests new research published tomorrow in The Journal of Immunology.
Researchers at the Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana have discovered that the HIV-1 protease inhibitors (PIs), such as nelfinavir included in highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimen for the treatment of HIV-1 patients, induce deleterious effects on insulin secretion mediated through the oxidative stress pathway.
HAART (highly active anti-retroviral therapy) has emerged as an extremely effective HIV treatment that keeps virus levels almost undetectable; however, HAART can never truly eradicate the virus as some HIV always remains dormant in cells.
When researchers came up with the powerful cocktail of anti-HIV drugs known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), they hoped they had found a way to finally rid the body of the virus. But they were wrong. The virus instead goes into hiding, dormant and practically undetectable in the body -- and impervious to attack. While HAART manages to keep the virus at bay, it's still quite capable -- given the right opportunity – of replicating and wreaking havoc on the body's immune system.
Patients taking highly active antiretroviral therapy for the treatment of HIV/AIDS often lose fatty tissues in the face as a result of treatment, making them appear gaunt and emaciated. Silicone facial implants can help these patients achieve a healthier appearance and fuller face. As patients with HIV live longer, they are beginning to seek surgical procedures to help improve their appearance caused by the disease and treatment, the article states. Traditionally, facial wasting syndrome has been treated using the patient's own fat, but frequent adjustments and additional procedures were often required. Custom designed implants tend to remain stable in their position after implantation and retain their original size and structure.
Treatment of HIV-positive individuals that includes the periodic withholding of antiviral medication has in past studies shown some short-term benefit, with viral loads remaining low for up to six months. But a follow up paper by the same research group shows that by the one year mark, viral loads rebounded in eight of the 14 patients studied.
Highly active antiretroviral therapy has been shown to delay progression of AIDS and reduce mortality, yet the optimal time to start it is unknown. Current federal and other guidelines suggest initiating therapy when counts are between 200 and 350 per microliter. Those levels may be too low, however, and therapy begun too late for optimal results, according to a new study of injection drug users. The authors studied both HIV-positive and HIV-negative injection drug users in order to compare data in persons with the same mortality risk category. The expectation was that such a comparison would provide a more accurate picture than heretofore reported of the degree to which the survival rate associated with HAART may be improved to approximate that of an uninfected population.
A government policy of providing HIV-infected citizens with free access to potent regimens of antiretroviral drugs reduced the rate of HIV transmission by 53% in Taiwan, according to a new study. Using public health surveillance data, investigators led by Chi-Tai Fang and Jung-Der Wang of National Taiwan University evaluated how cost-free provision of an anti-HIV regimen known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) affected the evolution of the HIV epidemic in Taiwan. Previous research has shown that HAART, which suppresses the level of HIV, prolongs the survival of HIV-infected individuals and reduces rates of mother-to-child and heterosexual transmission of the virus.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists report that brief, widely-spaced courses of the experimental immune-boosting drug interleukin-2 (IL-2) allow people with HIV to maintain near normal levels of a key immune system cell for long periods. The researchers, from NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, describe their findings in the May 1 issue of the journal Blood. "These data provide strong evidence that IL-2 therapy, which can be self-administered by patients, could be an important adjunct to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)," says NIAID Deputy Director John R. La Montagne, Ph.D.
For people with HIV, having a stable partner is associated with slower rate of progression to AIDS or death, finds a study in this week?s BMJ. Researchers in Switzerland followed 3,736 adults with HIV who had started highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) before 2002. Every six months, patients were asked whether they had had sexual intercourse with a stable partner.
AIDS patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma who receive the HAART "cocktail" therapy live much longer than those not treated with the therapy, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas found. A study published in today's issue of the journal AIDS reports that patients treated with HAART ? Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy ? survived at least 22 months, compared with a median of 29 days for those who didn't take the prescription drug regimen.
