New HIV drug
shows promise

A new antiretroviral drug to treat HIV has proven extremely effective when combined with existing treatment, reports The Lancet.

A study at the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, examined the effectiveness of giving advanced HIV patients a twice-daily dose of a new protease inhibitor, darunavir, with a low dose of the antiretroviral drug Norvir.

After 48 weeks, lead researcher Bonaventura Clotet and colleagues measured the amount of HIV RNA in the patients' blood and found the amounts to be 10 times lower in 61% of those taking the new drug. Just 15% of the control group, which received existing drugs, experienced the same reduction.

In addition 45% of those taking darunavir-Norvir reduced their HIV RNA concentrations to below 50 copies per milliliter of blood--the lowest recordable value. Only 10% of the control group made the same achievement. The new drug combination also boosted the immune system CD4 cell count by an average of 102. Previous research has shown that less than 10% of patients whose CD4 cell count increases of more than 100 progress to AIDS or die within three years, compared with 85% of those with a CD4 cell count increase of less than 25.

The rates of failure after six years on existing antiretroviral drugs is currently between 11% and 21%. (The Advocate)