Antiretroviral Medications Helps HIV Patients Live Longer
The British research shows that the antiretroviral medications have helped to lower the death rate among the HIV patients down. For most, the five-year, post-diagnosis survival for those infected sexually is now about equal to that of the general population. Dramatic declines in death rates for HIV-infected individuals following the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in industrialized nations in the mid-90s have already been documented.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, deliberately focused on people whose seroconversion rates were relatively well-established. Seroconversion refers to the time when antibodies to HIV appear in the blood, usually from one week to several months or more after actual infection.
The study that covered a period of 6.3 year, observes that 2,571 individuals with HIV infection died compared with 235 who would be expected to die in an equivalent general population. The excess mortality rate decreased from 40.8 per 1,000 person-years before the introduction of HAART to 6.1 per 1,000 person-years in the 2004 to 2006 period. The authors calculated an 88 percent reduction in excess mortality in 2000-2001 compared with the period prior to 1996. This was very close to the 87 percent reduction seen in 1997-2001. In 2004-2006, the excess mortality was 94 percent lower than pre-1996 levels.
Dr. Michael Horberg, director of HIV/AIDS at Kaiser Permanente Health Plan in Santa Clara, Calif said,
“The study doesn’t take into account adverse events and medication adherence. And, over a longer time frame, we don’t know if there might be an effect from medications accumulating in the body.”
Source: Medline Plus
