Mayo Clinic: Don't switch HIV drugs that don't work...

Mayo Clinic researchers have announced an ironic finding in the search to find weapons against HIV/AIDS.

If no other treatments are available, it might be better to keep taking a drug that's not working than to stop taking the drug.

They also suggest a "novel protein" called "Casp8p41" might be a better measure of the illness than virus load.

"HIV causes disease by progressively killing CD4 T cells, whose function is to orchestrate the immune system. Loss of these cells renders patients susceptible to unusual infections and cancers. Over time, HIV mutates and can become resistant to the drugs used for treatment. Mayo researchers have discovered that viruses with certain mutations that render a component of the drug cocktail used to treat HIV infection ineffective also have an impaired ability to kill CD4 T cells. Even though mutated viruses replicate as well as normal HIV, they fail to cause the infected cells to die. Not all mutant viruses share this effect; only selected mutations cause the impairment in cell killing, without effecting virus replication," says an announcement from Mayo.

Dr. Andrew Badley is quoted by Mayo as saying that "changing treatments might not be needed in order to help the immune system."

Pulse on Health
By Jeff Hansel, member Association of Health Care Journalists
Health Reporter for the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 18 1st Ave. S.E. in Rochester, Minnesota 55904 
Twitter Hansel's Pulse: @Jeff Hansel