HIV Digest	HIV Digest Archive

A controversial treatment in which HIV patients take medications only on alternate weeks appears to hold HIV at bay without creating a drug-resistant virus, researchers heard at the International AIDS Society's Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment in Buenos Aires. "Our results seem to be an indication that small cyclical treatment interruption could be a feasible option," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. More than a year after the treatment program began with 10 patients, Fauci said he has seen no evidence of the two most feared complications. During the one-week period in which patients went off the drugs, Fauci said no patient recorded an increase in viral levels. Further, no drug-resistant mutation has appeared either, Fauci said.

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Other structured treatment interruption (STI) programs have been tried, Fauci said, including two-months-on, one-month-off approach, but that strategy showed the ability of the virus to rebound above detectable levels. Now Fauci is focusing on the one- week-on, one-week-off regimen. "The short period of time off drugs does not appear to give the virus enough time to rebound," he said.

Georgetown University researcher Dr. Franco Lori said the immune systems of some STI patients may be able to recognize the virus and attack it when it rebounds. He warned, however, that when the virus rebounds it can destroy some key immune cells that are slowly regenerating. Scientists also expressed fears that patients might try their own forms of STI, with disastrous results. While he called Fauci's results interesting and impressive, Dr. Joseph Eron, associate professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, noted that the study involved just 10 patients. Fauci said a larger trial of STI is being prepared.

Editor's Note: from United Press International