AIDS is anything but past – it’s a disease that is affecting millions of people around the world. But, because there are now antiretroviral medications that can help people with HIV and AIDS live longer, there’s a mistaken impression that the disease can now be treated.
Research is being done all over the world to find better medications to help improve the lives of those with HIV or AIDS, if not cure it. However, the latest research has found that one medication is better than another in a specific group of people with 
HIV – ones with high viral loads. A viral load is how much HIV is in your body. The lower the viral load, the better the chances of staying healthy. Viral failure is what happens when the antiretroviral drugs can no longer suppress the virus.
In the research reported today, doctors reported that people with HIV who had high viral loads and who began treatment with a medication called Epzicom (a combination of abacavir and lamivudine), did not do as well as those who began with a medication called Truvada (a combination of tenofovir DF and emtricitabine). The findings were so significant, that the study was stopped two years before it was scheduled to finish. When a study shows a clearly better progression rate of one medication over another, it isn’t ethical to continue it.
“The patients in the study all did quite well. But for those starting with high viral loads, there was a highly significant difference in outcomes that favored those given Truvada compared to Epzicom,” said Dr. [Eric] Daar [a principal investigator at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed)]. “As we mark Worlds AIDS Day this year, we can celebrate the fact that there are many effective therapeutic options for the treatment of HIV-infected individuals and much ongoing research, like this study, to further refine and optimize the management of this disease.”
Although the study was discontinued in this group of patients, researchers are continuing to look at the medications in patients with lower viral loads. The results of the study were published in the most recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Post from: Blisstree