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New Study Shows “Nearly Everyone with HIV Can Be Treated Effectively”
The Comment from a new study about the effectiveness of HIV treatment in the “real world” versus clinical trials is by the editor-in-chief of Journal Watch, a physician research summary/commentary service.
As regular readers know, it is important to know about the expert whose opinion you are reading. You may take that opinion.
The Journal Watch biography of the editor’s credentials are posted as follows.
“Paul E. Sax, MD, is Clinical Director of the HIV Program and Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is actively involved in HIV research, clinical practice, and teaching. His research interests include clinical trials of new antiretroviral therapies, the cost-effectiveness of HIV management strategies, complications of antiretroviral treatment, and the identification, treatment, and outcome of primary HIV infection. Dr. Sax is the Principal Investigator of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital AIDS Clinical Trials Unit and is a member of the Cost Effectiveness of Preventing AIDS Complications (CEPAC) Research Group. He has been a member of the AIDS Clinical Care Editorial Board since 1996 and has been Editor-in-Chief since 2003.”
…”Comment: People sometimes say that HIV treatment outcomes in clinical cohorts can never match those seen in clinical trials, because the trials enroll ideal patient types not typically seen in the “real world.” What the astounding results of this study clearly demonstrate, however, is that our currently available regimens are so good that even with the heterogeneity (and potential chaos) of clinical care, nearly everyone with HIV infection can be treated successfully. The decline in newly detected resistance indicates that HIV drug resistance — especially multiclass resistance — is largely a relic of the pre–potent therapy era. The question remains what to do with the residual 10% or so of patients who are not treated successfully; one suspects that treatment failure in these patients arises mostly from psychosocial (rather than medical) challenges.”
Source: Journal Watch, December 21, 2009
Citation:Clin Infect Dis 2010 Jan 1; 50:98.
