CONTACTStaffCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2024 Pride Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
HIV treatment interruptions, or so-called drug holidays, may be dangerous in patients whose virus has become drug-resistant, a new study released Wednesday showed. Treatment breaks helped the disease progress faster and did little to save lives or improve the quality of health when signs of drug resistance were appearing, researchers reported in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. "We had hoped that a structured treatment interruption would be beneficial for people experiencing treatment failure due to multidrug-resistant HIV," said Jody Lawrence of the University of California, San Francisco, who led the study. "However, our results indicate that this strategy does not work and should be avoided by this group of HIV-infected individuals. Continuing therapy guided by HIV drug-resistance testing proved to be a better approach." Drug holidays are being tried in a variety of HIV patients to get a break from the side effects of the drugs. Doctors considered interrupting treatment once resistance to the drugs has developed because, when the drugs are stopped, the AIDS virus tends to mutate back to a form that is more sensitive to the highly active antiretroviral therapy. The researchers did find that in 64% of the 138 test patients whose treatment was interrupted for 16 weeks, the virus indeed reverted to a more sensitive form. However, those people did not do as well when resuming anti-HIV drugs as did the 132 patients who were immediately switched to new medicines without a treatment break. HIV disease progression, as marked by falling T-cell counts and rising HIV viral loads, was detected in 16% of the patients who took a drug holiday and then resumed medication, compared with 9% of those who switched to a different HAART cocktail. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which sponsored the research, cautioned that the new study included only cases where HIV was detectable in the blood and the virus had become resistant to anti-HIV drugs. "For individuals who are being successfully treated with anti-HIV medications, other studies have shown that cycles of treatment interruptions for shorter periods may be of potential benefit to conserve medications and reduce drug-related toxicities," Fauci said in a statement.
Want more breaking equality news & trending entertainment stories?
Check out our NEW 24/7 streaming service: the Advocate Channel!
Download the Advocate Channel App for your mobile phone and your favorite streaming device!
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
Meet all 37 of the queer women in this season's WNBA
April 17 2024 11:24 AM
Here are the 15 gayest travel destinations in the world: report
March 26 2024 9:23 AM
21+ steamy photos of Scotland’s finest gay men in Elska Glasgow
February 01 2024 10:07 PM
More Than 50 of Our Favorite LGBTQ+ Moms
May 12 2024 11:44 AM
Conjoined twins Lori Schappell and trans man George Schappell dead at 62
April 27 2024 6:13 PM
Latest Stories
Joe Biden sends queer lawmakers & LGBTQ+ allies to Paris Olympics
July 24 2024 12:08 PM
Kamala Harris rides wave of Democratic energy at kickoff event in Wisconsin
July 23 2024 3:36 PM
'Devastated:' A six-week abortion ban will go into effect in Iowa next week
July 23 2024 2:28 PM
Four hours, 44,000 Black women, and one Zoom call
July 23 2024 2:17 PM