Is there going to be a way to stop HIV from becoming AIDS at last? British researchers are said to have developed a blood test which can find AIDS hiding invisibly in the body - a breakthrough which could transform HIV treatment world-wide, says the London Evening Standard.
The paper says doctors expect this test to lead to therapies which "totally control and completely stop" HIV's progression to AIDS.
The virus's ability to hide in organs like the brain, eyes, and testicles has proven a major obstacle to effective treatment, the Standard says. Normal blood tests can show anti-retroviral drugs stopping the virus when the virus is really continuing to replicate. But researchers at London's Hammersmith Hospital discovered the HIV "calling card," the paper says, which reveals the virus has grounded itself in a hidden part of the body.
This calling card involves "small loops or 'circles' of viral DNA," the Standard says, "waste products of replication, which can be found in white blood cells. By detecting and tracking the circles, it is possible to show that the virus is alive and replicating in a patient taking anti-retroviral therapy."
"The complex and toxic medications HIV patients receive at present can now be monitored more effectively and should lead to more informed decisions about the best therapy for each one," the research team's chief, Dr. Sunil Shaunak, tells the London Telegraph. "The challenge now lies in understanding the nature of the reservoir in which the virus continues to grow despite anti-retroviral drugs."
Team members in Britain and the United States drew blood from a reported 63 patients, the Telegraph says. They'd been on anti-retroviral drugs over a year and their blood appeared to be clear of HIV - but the new test showed 75 percent of the patients had viral circles, and those without the circles did not have infectious viruses in their bodies, the paper says.
The paper also says discovering HIV hiding in the organs came only after successful "triple-therapy" anti-retroviral drug treatment - and as soon as patients stopped their medication, the infection returned, showing the virus rebounded from "cells deep in organs of the body where it had sheltered from the drugs."
