Thanks for your help on this site. I tested positive 2/00, initial VL 26K and CD4 455/25. Began therapy on Trizivir and VL declined to <50 within 2 months. CD4 increased up to 803/39 at 12/00. Since then CD4 has been: 3/01 - 759/37 and 6/01 - 648/35. I am currently awaiting the results of 9/01 test, but remain on Trizivir. Does this indicate resistance or is there anything else I should be concerned about?

We see these kinds of trends on occasion. I agree that the trend appears real, given the CD4 count decline of 200 and the percentage decline of 4%. At this point, it is not clinically significant for you, given where CD4 count is. It is possible that the AZT component could be contributing to a lowered total white blood cell count, and hence slightly lowered CD4 count. There is some very recent data that indicates that some people with "undetectable" viral loads actually have detectable virus below 50, but not zero, who have some evidence of resistance. The numbers of patients studied are very small and we don't know the signficance of this. There are no commercially available resistance tests that can detect resistance below 50 copies. This is a research test only. We also don't know whether switching regimens will be useful in these cases. If the trend continues, a regimen change might be in order. MH