Hiv And Salvage Therapy

Here's a taste of what TheBody.com has to offer on this topic:

Get the Facts

Salvage Therapy

What Is Salvage Therapy? Antiretroviral therapy (ART) sometimes needs to be changed if the treatment is not working. This usually happens when the HIV viral load (see Fact Sheet 125 ) rises instead of staying very low. A rise in viral load almost always means that HIV has developed resistance (see Fact Sheet 126 ) to the antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) someone is taking. When HIV begins to increase even when someone is taking ART, this is known as...

Ask the Experts

Long term "salvage" therapy side effects

I am a person who has been hiv+ since the 80's and was one of the first people to get the hiv antiblody test after its release. I started meds soon after there was something available besides AZT, due to a random CD4 count of 30. I then began...

Response from Keith Henry, M.D.

University of Minnesota, School of Medicine

Great question for which there is no good answer other than--watch closely since patients like yourself are the real laboratory for what happens over the long term. As I tell patients - no lab rat has taken those meds for as long as some of our... Read more »

salvage therapy

Dear Sir: I have doubts in the management of an AIDS patient. She is a 41 yo patient who is HCV and HIV (+) since 1995, having used many antiretroviral drugs in the last years.At this moment she presents a multidrug...

Response from Sharon Lee, M.D.

University of Kansas Medical Center

This patient has a very difficult resistance pattern to work around. She has lost the non-nucleoside class with the K103 and L100 mutations, knocked out zidovudine and stavudine with the 210 and 215, and of course lamivudine and emticitabine with... Read more »

salvage therapy

I am a doctor based in zambia who treats HIV pateints and i have been placed in a quagmire of sorts. i recently saw ayoung man of 15 years age who is on ARV for close to 10 years. he unfortunately is resistant to a whole range of drugs . he had both...

Response from Renslow Sherer, M.D.

University of Chicago Hospitals

This is a difficult situation that is increasingly common in resource poor settings. This young man has had more access to ART and diagnostic tests than most, but the information may well be incomplete and out of date by this time. Complex... Read more »

Salvage therapy choice

Hello,I was diagnosed 3/96 with AIDS (12 CD4 cells >750,000 VL). In the years since I've taken most of the HIV meds on the market. My CD4 count on 7/25 was 435 (down from 495 in April - still at 21%), and VL is 18,300, up from 11,280. My...

Response from Renslow Sherer, M.D.

University of Chicago Hospitals

Thank you for a fine description of a complicated history. I am sure that your physician and consultants have been assisted by this orderly presentation of a great deal of data.I will make the following disclaimer happily: I spent 25 years at Cook... Read more »

Go to Ask the Experts »

Connect With Others

Changing drug therapy

Posted by Anonymous, 1 Reply

I have been HIV+ for 12+ years and have never had a T4 count above 400 and have been as low as 128. I have never had any oportunistic infection or HIV related illness.
Current treatment includes Combivir & Crixivan. Current viral load 2043 and... Read more »

Resistant, then what? How many lines of therapy?

Posted by Anonymous, 3 Replies

What percentage of folks infected with HIV are basically screwed by total resistance right out of the gate? I know resistance forms of HIV is becoming more common, but generally there is still a line of treatment options that will work for these... Read more »

hiv gene therapy

Posted by hopefulone, 2 Replies

hiv gene therapy has been getting a lot of play in the national and international press as of late....i would be interetested in comments on this hope. Read more »

Kill HIV with Photopheresis, Ultra-Violet Blood Irradiation (UBI) Therapies?

Posted by Jon316, 1 Reply

I've read a little about Photopheresis and Ultra-Viole Blood Irradiation (UBI) therapies being performed by M.D.'s across the U.S., Europe, Russia and Germany. It seems that these procedures have been done for quite some time, but fell out of... Read more »

Connect on Our Bulletin Boards »

Tools

My Health Tracker

Assess Your Risk for HIV

Find Local HIV/AIDS Services

Resource Centers

Guides for People With HIV

View All of Our Guides >>