Study Indicates HIV Medication Should Be Started Earlier.

· HIV infection destroys the immune system over time. As HIV infection worsens, the number of CD4 cells will progressively fall. HIV treatment with medications has routinely been delayed until the immune system cell CD4 count drops below 250 or a patient has an AIDS defining illness such as an opportunistic infection.

· A recent study in the journal The Lancet reports that patients with HIV would benefit from starting anti-viral HIV medication earlier.

· The study analyzed data from 18 studies of patients with HIV which included 45,000 individuals.

· The study reported that waiting to start medication until a CD4 cell count dropped to 251-350 cells was associated with higher rates of the development AIDS and death when compared with starting medications earlier, when CD4 cells counts were higher, between 351-450 cells.

· The study authors concluded that their data indicates that medications should be started earlier in the course of the disease, when patients have CD4 cells that have dropped to 350 cells.

· This study is a retrospective observational analysis of previous clinical trials. The authors present a convincing argument to start treatment earlier, possibly at CD4 cell count as high as 450.

Reference
The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 9 April 2009

April 9 2009

Posted on April 9, 2009

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