Superior adherence to HIV-1 antiretroviral therapy is a mainstay of successful HIV management. Studies performed in the early era of highly active antiretroviral therapy demonstrated the need for > or =95% adherence in order to achieve and sustain viral suppression. High rates of viral suppression have been observed at more moderate levels of adherence with newer antiretroviral regimens. The te...

OBJECTIVES The aim of the study is to determine the concordance between the PROCAM (Prospective Cardiovascular Münster) and Framingham scales in patients receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). MATERIALS AND METHODS A cross sectional study was conducted in HIV-positive male population who use HAART in a national reference hospital located in Lima, Peru. To evaluate the concord...

Elite suppressors (ES) are a rare population of HIV-infected individuals that are capable of naturally controlling the infection without the use of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART). Patients on HAART often achieve viral control to similar (undetectable) levels. Accurate and sensitive methods to measure viral burden are needed to elucidate important differences between these two pat...

PURPOSE The objective was to evaluate the impact of an intervention for improving adherence to antiretroviral therapies (HAART) in HIV-infected patients. METHOD We designed a prospective, controlled, randomized trial to assess the impact of an educational and counseling intervention in addition to standard of care. At M0, the study enrolled 244 HAART-treated patients who attended a medical co...

BACKGROUND Despite the widely accepted association between crusted scabies and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infection, crusted scabies has not been included in the spectrum of infections associated with immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome in HIV-infected patients initiating antiretroviral therapy. CASE PRESENTATION We report a case of a 28-year-old Mexican individual with late H...

The 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) presented important highlights of advances in antiretroviral therapy. Investigators emphasized new approaches to finding a cure for HIV infection, with a special focus on an infant who received combination antiretroviral therapy at 30 hours of age and may have achieved a functional cure in the absence of continued antiretro...

Toxicity is the most frequently reported reason for modifying or discontinuing the first combined antiretroviral therapy regimens, and it can cause significant morbidity, poor quality of life and also can be an important barrier to adherence, ultimately resulting in treatment failure and viral resistance. Elderly patients with HIV/AIDS (≥ 50 years) may have a different profile in terms of treat...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of episodic antiretroviral therapy on quality of life (QOL). DESIGN This was a substudy of the Strategies of Management of Antiretroviral Therapy study, in which patients were randomized to continuous versus CD4 cell count-guided episodic antiretroviral therapy. QOL assessments included an analog scale for current health and the Short-Form 12 Item Survey, a st...

After interruption of highly active antiretroviral therapy, 15 out of 53 patients with the X4 HIV strain had a significantly larger decrease in CD4(+) T cell count (P = 0.001) and shorter length of treatment interruption (P = 0.02) than patients with the R5 strain. At treatment resumption, HIV inferred tropism switched from the X4 strain to the R5 variant in 9 patients (60%). These patients had...