Dynamics of Virologic and Immunologic Markers of HIV Progression During Treatment Interruption: Chorus Cohort

摘要

Highly Active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has been proven to substantially suppress virus replication, decreasing morbidity and mortality rates among HIV infected patients. However, issues of potency, adherence, toxicity, resistance and cost, limit current antiretroviral regimens. With these limitations and the prospect of life-long therapy, there is an unmet need for alternative therapies to continuous HAART. One option has been in the direction of strategies that allow discontinuation of medications, such as treatment interruption (TI). In patients with chronic treated infection and treatment interruption there have been conflicting reports as to whether the TI produces overgrowth of wild-type virus that presumably replaces a resistant virus. The timing and peaks of viral load and the possible damage to the CD4 compartment caused by the more immunosuppressive wild-type virus has also received attention from small clinical trials.