More from ICAAC

There’s more news from the recent Forty-Sixth Interscience Conference on Antimocrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in this HIV Weekly.

One piece of research particularly stood out for me – the finding that the promising new protease inhibitor darunavir (TMC114) has significant interactions with some medicines commonly taken by people with HIV. It’s well known that anti-HIV drugs can have significant interactions with other medicines, so to make sure that these don’t negatively effect your health, it makes good sense for your HIV doctor and pharmacist to know exactly what medicines and drugs you are taking – including those prescribed by another doctor, bought over the counter (or over the internet), or even used “recreationally.” 

HIV treatment

HIV and hepatitis C

Many HIV-positive people are also infected with hepatitis C virus. This virus affects the liver and hepatitis C is now one of the leading causes of illness and death amongst HIV-positive people.

Treatment is available for hepatitis C and doctors are gradually learning how best to use it in people with HIV.

New research presented to ICAAC shows how doctors are looking at the characteristics of patients to try and predict who will have the best response to treatment, or whose treatment might need modification. One study showed that people who have hepatitis C genotype 1, which is especially hard to treat, may actually have a better response to treatment if they have a large amount of the virus in their blood prior to starting hepatitis C therapy. A second study showed patients with higher CD4 cell percentages had better responses to hepatitis C therapy.

Increased cholesterol can be an unwanted side-effect of anti-HIV treatment, but another study presented to ICAAC has found that people taking HIV treatment who are infected with hepatitis C have lower increases in cholesterol.

MRSA

Outbreaks of the so-called “super-bug,” MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) infection have attracted a lot of sensationalist media reporting in recent years, and hospital outbreaks of the infection even become a major issue in the 2005 UK general election.

A study presented to ICAAC showed that community-acquired MRSA is an increasing problem amongst HIV-positive patients admitted to hospital in San Francisco. In 1996, only 7% of Staphylococcus aureus samples had resistance, but by 2005 this had increased to 76%.

The strain seen in the hospital was resistant to penicillin, oxacillin, erythromycin and had some resistance to tetracycline, making it very hard to treat.

The infections involved the skin and soft tissues.