Virus-Free Patients Not A Surety

A highly respected AIDS scientist has announced a delay in his plans to seek a cure in certain patients. At an international conference held last July in Vancouver, Dr. David Ho, had raised immediate hopes, saying his tests might begin as early as autumn, 1997. Now, however, the delay he foresees may last a year.

The tests would involve the stoppage of combination drug therapies in patients who, after two years, show no signs of the virus. These patients would then be repeatedly tested for signs of a return of their HIV status. Dr. Ho's hopeful theories for a cure assumes that if infected cells that have been killed can no longer be found in the body, only uninfected cells will grow thereafter.

In a recent meeting convened in the nation's capital, Dr. Ho held a prior news conference, addressing the meeting's theme, "Can H.I.V. Be Eradicated From an Infected Person?" The answer to this crucial question, said a now more modest Dr. Ho, is "Clearly, we don't know."

Ho's comments about the existence of virus-free patients was also less than celebratory. None of those, he announced, currently taking part in his research-studies can "unequivocally" be said to be virus-free. Safer sex must still remain each person's primary responsibility, he insisted.

Initial blueprints calling for cure-tests would have asked seemingly-non-infected patients to stop all combination drug therapy for a year. This approach is undergoing certain revisions, says Dr. Ho, as it now seems wiser to allow the passing of at least three years during which the virus can not be detected before removing patients from therapy. "We need to treat longer," stated Dr. Ho at his January 23rd news conference. He stated that he and his team of researchers have never yet asked any patient to stop current drug regimens.

The speed with which HIV cells die may vary in different parts of the anatomy, according to Ho. Blood tests and cultures in lymph nodes, semen and tissues of the rectum are taken regularly from patients and thus far there is no evidence of HIV revivals in any of these patients, though viral particles remain trapped in certain tissues where--based on continuing tests-- HIV may remain for up to two-and-a-half years. Such findings, since the Vancouver conference, are being used to explain Dr. Ho's greater caution about rushing to stop all drug therapy at once.

For a year-and-a-half Dr. Ho's team has treated approximately 20 patients who began therapy within three months of HIV diagnosis. In other research, however, Dr. Ho says his researchers now see "very comparable results" in patients who were diagnosed in much earlier time-frames and who had never yet taken HIV drugs before entering the research program. Ho stressed that his team's inability to find HIV in a patient's body does not mean it is not still hiding there.