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New Therapy For HIV/AIDS Patients

© Neal Rolfe Chamberlain

The HIV virus damages the immune system. It is this damage that makes HIV/AIDS patients more likely to get all sorts of other infections and cancers (AIDS-related illnesses). Many of these AIDS-related illnesses are life-threatening. Controlling the growth of the HIV virus and preventing these AIDS-related illnesses can be a real problem because the immune system is so damaged it can't mount a good response when another microbial invader enters or if a few human cells run wild and produce tumors.

With the introduction of HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy; The HIV virus is in the Retrovirus family of viruses.) the number of HIV viruses in the body can be reduce significantly. With this reduction in virus number comes an increase in helper T cells (helper T cells help other cells in the immune system eliminate microbes and destroy tumor cells). There is also a noticable decrease in the number of AIDS-related illnesses HIV/AIDS patients get when on HAART therapy. Unfortunately, the increase in helper T cells is not at the levels you would see in the person before the HIV/AIDS virus infection and AIDS-related illnesses do still occur. Usually, the helper T cell number only goes up by about 1/3 of what it was.

A new treatment added to HAART therapy has recently demonstrated that HIV/AIDS patients immune systems can be stimulated to make more helper T cells. Adding an experimental drug to antiviral therapy may help persons with advanced HIV infection (they have very low helper T cell numbers) rebuild their immune systems faster than with HAART therapy alone. UCLA's Dr. Ronald Mitsuyasu used Interleukin 2 (IL-2) in addition to HAART therapy to rebuild his patient's immune systems. He presented these findings Oct. 25, 2000 at the 5th International Congress on Drug Therapy in HIV Infection in Glasgow.

IL-2 is a naturally occurring human protein shown to stimulate the production of immune cells. The researchers compared the results from 161 randomly assigned patients possessing helper T cell (also called CD4-cells) counts as low as 50. A group of 109 patients received a daily regimen of HAART, plus a five-day course of IL-2 every eight weeks. Fifty-five patients received HAART alone. Researchers found that the persons who received the combination therapy showed a dramatic increase in new helper T cells. While HAART alone increased helper T cells by a median of 32 percent, the addition of IL-2 increased helper T cells up to a median of 137 percent.

The findings suggest that IL-2 works in concert with the powerful antiviral drugs to help the immune system regenerate itself after damage by the AIDS virus. First HAART suppresses replication of the virus and diminishes the

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