An ongoing dialogue on HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases,
May 12th, 2011
HPTN 052 Results — Another Win for Early HIV Therapy
The results of the HPTN Study 052 — which randomized 1,763 serodiscordant couples to early vs delayed ART to evaluate whether this reduced the risk of HIV transmission — have just been released: Findings from the study were reviewed by an independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) …The DSMB concluded that initiation of ART by HIV-infected […]
May 9th, 2011
Routine Screening for Anal Cancer: Are We There Yet?
A paper recently published in AIDS evaluated the cost effectiveness of various strategies for anal cancer screening in HIV positive men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM). The “bottom line” (ahem): In HIV-infected MSM, the direct use of high resolution anoscopy is the most cost-effective strategy for detecting anal intraepithelial neoplasia Over on our Journal Watch AIDS Clinical Care site, Tim Wilkin from […]
April 28th, 2011
Hepatitis C Week is Upon Us
After many — and I mean many — years of telling patients that new hepatitis C drugs were “coming soon,” that time has finally come. An FDA Advisory Panel yesterday favorably reviewed the HCV protease inhibitor boceprevir; today telaprevir got the same unanimous report. The FDA will certainly follow with approval for both drugs, and hence […]
April 25th, 2011
FEM-PrEP: A Set Back in HIV Prevention Research
HIV prevention has been on such a roll recently that the recent negative news from the FEM-PrEP study came as something of a surprise. Bottom line: Following a scheduled interim review of the FEM-PrEP study data, the Independent Data Monitoring Committee (IDMC) advised that the FEM-PrEP study will be highly unlikely to be able to demonstrate […]
April 18th, 2011
When to Start Antiretroviral Therapy, Take 3
A third observational study on “When to Start ART” has just appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine, “The HIV-CAUSAL Collaboration.” As with ART-CC and NA-ACCORD, it’s a large study, starting with over 20,000 people with HIV with baseline CD4s >500 receiving care in Europe and the United States. Out of this group, 8392 experienced CD4 […]
April 11th, 2011
Organ Transplants from HIV-Infected Donors
On the heels of last month’s report of HIV transmission from an organ donor — covered here in Journal Watch — comes this remarkable article in the New York Times about lifting the ban on organ donation from donors known to be HIV positive. Naturally, the first group of patients slated to receive these HIV positive […]
April 9th, 2011
And Now, for a More Comprehensive CROI Report …
Although I’ve already provided a Really Rapid Review™ of the 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), the editors of Journal Watch/AIDS Clinical Care have put together a more comprehensive summary here. I sometimes wonder what research from these conferences will not only stand the test of time, but will grow in importance and […]
April 5th, 2011
Scamming Academic Journals
Academic scams are not just limited to meetings. Every so often, I receive an e-mail that goes something like this: Dear Dr. Sax, The journal Contemporary Organic Biosynthesis [journal name made up] covers all the latest and outstanding developments in organic biosynthesis studies. It is one of the leading journals for expert reviews in the field. Please visit […]
March 30th, 2011
Journal Club: Even When You Think You Should Wait, It’s Probably Time to Start
Two papers just published in AIDS with relevance to the “when to start” antiretroviral therapy question. Both apply to certain patients in whom we might consider waiting to start treatment– but both these studies suggest we do otherwise. The first applies to the patients with slooooow CD4 decline. Perhaps so slow that both you and your patient […]
March 18th, 2011
Friday Fosfomycins
Today’s ID/HIV comments and links are named after every ID specialist’s favorite new toy for UTIs. This HIV transmission from a kidney donor is getting quite a bit of media play, as such complications always do. I was at a meeting this AM when one of my colleagues (an endocrinologist) commented how horrible she thought it […]
Paul E. Sax, MD
Contributing Editor
NEJM Journal Watch
Infectious Diseases
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NEJM Journal Watch — Recent Infectious Disease Articles- Diphtheria Outbreak in the EU: Reason for Concern
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