Math May Determine Best HIV Drug Combinations
February 24, 2012
Patient, who is suffering from AIDS, lies on a bed at the state hospital in Congo's capital of Kinshasa, October 2006. Researchers hope new mathematical formula will allow doctors to use the best combinations of antiretroviral drugs for treatment. (file photo)
Treating people infected with the AIDS virus involves using a combination of antiretroviral drugs. But some combinations work better than others. Now, a mathematical formula has been developed that may eventually help doctors decide which drugs to use.
Prescribing a cocktail of drugs has become the gold standard in preventing HIV from replicating. It’s called HAART, which stands for highly active antiretroviral therapy. The cocktail combinations may be changed periodically to prevent the virus from building up resistance.
The new math
The new mathematical formula is based on a 5-year analysis of how the drugs keep HIV in check.
Dr. Robert Siliciano, Profess of medicine, Johns Hopkins
Dr. Robert Siliciano, senior study investigator and a specialist in infectious disease, said, “I’ve always been interested in why some combinations of HIV drugs work well and some don’t. Most of the progress in the HIV treatment field in terms of deciding which treatments should be used in patients has been based on empirical studies – trial and error clinical trials – in which different combinations are tested against each other. And you look at how many patients after one year of treatment have (an) undetectable level of virus.”
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