Human immunodeficiency virus combination therapy, AIDS

Brodt HR, Kamps BS et al (1997) Changing incidence of AlDS-defining iUnesses in the era of antiretroviral combination therapy. AIDS 11(14) 1731-1738 Calabrese LH, Proffitt MR et al (1987) Acute infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) associated with acute brachial neuritis and exanthematous rash. Ann Intern Med 107(6) 849-851... 

The history of combating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can be viewed as a model of today s development of pharmaceuticals (Stone, 1995). Since the middle of the 1980s a total of 20 anti-AIDS pharmaceuticals based on 16 distinct chemical entities have been introduced into the market the first was AZT by Glaxo in 1987. A causal therapy, however, has not been developed yet. Most advantageous effects of today s actives are temporary because HIV is characterized by an extreme mutability and can cause resistance phenomena through rapid mutation within months or sometimes weeks against most approved preparations or those in clinical phases. The criterion for efficacy is the reduction of the number, or even total elimination, of viruses in the blood combined with an enhanced count of C D4-T-lymphocytes. 

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