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68% of British HIV patients virus-free six months after treatment

The goal of anti-HIV treatment for people who are starting it for the first time is an undetectable viral load within six months.

The professional organization of the UK’s HIV doctors, the British HIV Association, has conducted a survey to see how many patients achieve this outcome.

In the summer of 2006 questionnaires were sent to every clinic offering HIV treatment in the UK and most completed them and provided information on 1170 patients.

The results were highly encouraging as 68% had an undetectable viral load after six months.

When the doctors looked at people who were still taking treatment after six months they found that 84% had an undetectable viral load.

60% of people were starting treatment when their CD4 cell count was below 200 – the level at which current UK treatment guidelines say treatment should be started. And only 10% of patients were starting treatment when their CD4 cell count was around 350, the level which many doctors think treatment should be started to have the best chance of long-term success.

There were other encouraging findings. For example, nearly all patients had a resistance test before starting treatment, and using the results of these tests doctors were able to select a combination of drugs for patients with resistance that meant they were just as likely as those without drug-resistant virus to have an undetectable viral load at six months.

Doctors also appeared to be prescribing drugs in accordance with treatment guidelines and patients at the largest and smallest HIV clinics were equally likely to do well on anti-HIV treatment.

As reported in aidsmap news:

http://nam.org.uk/en/news/E1260344-EE8F-43D5-AFF8-5FE07DFDBFDF.asp