HIV and ID Observations

June 23rd, 2010

Combined HIV Antibody/Antigen Test Approved

From the FDA: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the first assay to detect both antigen and antibodies to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)… The highly sensitive assay is intended to be used as an aid in the diagnosis of HIV-1/HIV-2 infection, including acute or primary HIV-1 infection. Since it actually detects the HIV-1 […]

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June 16th, 2010

Another HIV Drug Development Program Bows Out

Last month, Avexa announced that they will not be going forward with their development of the investigational NRTI apricitabine. Now Myriad says its program to develop bevirimat is closing as well. The problems with these drugs — twice daily dosing with apricitabine, formulation and mixed responses with bevirimat — are not the real story here, since arguably we […]

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June 11th, 2010

Plays at the (Culture) Plate

Some quick ID/HIV/other thoughts while we marvel in all that is Strasburgian: Did you know that HIV medication adherence improves over time? So much for “pill fatigue.” By the way, this anecdotally fits with my experience as well. And right now, the biggest reason for patients’ stopping their HIV meds is financial, usually due to loss of or […]

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June 2nd, 2010

Screening for Anal Cancer and the World’s Worst Job

In Journal Watch AIDS Clinical Care, we published a simple case:  Clinically stable HIV+ gay man, on HIV treatment; anal pap comes back with “atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance” (ASCUS). What to do with this result?  Two experts weighed in, Howard Libman and Joel Gallant.  In Howard’s thoughtful response, he acknowledges the limitations of the data thus […]

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