Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Microcap & Penny Stocks : ADVR:THE NEW COMPANY...WITH A NEW LIFE...AND A NEW MISSION -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eracist who wrote (310)	6/6/1998 10:34:00 PM
From: BARRY ALLEN	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4891

High active treatment helps HIV sufferers By Patricia Reaney LONDON, June 5 (Reuters) - French doctors announced an important improvement on Friday in the treatment of some patients with advanced HIV disease, the virus that causes AIDS. They showed that a high active antiviral treatment (HAART) reduces the HIV virus and improves the function of important immune cells against some infections. The HIV virus destroys the body's crucial CD4 T cells that co-ordinates the immune system. As the CD4 count of a person with HIV falls they become more susceptible to a wide range of infections. The loss or damage of these cells was thought to be irreversible in advanced cases of the disease, but researchers at the Hopital Pitie-Salpetriere in France found that CD4 T-cell activity could be restored in patients after more than six months of HAART. ''It's possible to restore immunity,'' Dr Roland Tubiana, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview. ''This depends on the HIV viral load, which has to be reduced and which has to last. If you have a reduction in viral load followed by an increase there is no restoration (of immunity),'' he added. The viral load is a measure of the levels of HIV. The goal of HIV treatment is to reduce the viral load and to help the immune system to renew itself. The French study, published in The Lancet medical journal, showed that restored immunity depends on the amount and duration of the decrease in the viral-load and a corresponding increase of CD4 T cells. Tubiana said the viral load must be reduced for more than six months to give the immune system time to regenerate. The latest ''cocktail'' therapy of protease inhibitor drugs has cut the viral loads of some patients to indistinguishable levels and increased their CD 4 counts after just three months, but to be effective it needs to be long-lasting. Twenty patients infected with HIV-1, the most common strain of the virus, took part in the HAART study. Fourteen were treated with the protease inhibitor indinavir and six others took ritonavir. All the patients were also given two reverse-transcriptase drugs and followed up for 12 months. The researchers took blood samples and measured the patient's immune response to tuberculosis and cytomegalovirus, which causes inflammation of the brain and the intestine. They are two of the most dangerous diseases for HIV patients. Their immune responses were measured at three-month intervals. At the start of the treatment only four patients had any immunological reactivity to the infections. Between three and 12 months the HIV in blood decreased and CD4 cell counts increased in all patients. Ten patients, some who had had previous treatment and some who didn't, sustained an immunological response and viral load reduction for 12 months. The patients had different medical histories and drug regimes. ''All these people had a good viral decline that lasted more than six months,'' said Tubiana. ''You cannot say everyone will have the same results but it is achievable.'' 12:24 06-04-98