Breaks from antiretroviral treatment are not the answer for HIV patients

doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7414.520-c

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Deborah Josefson

Nebraska

Patients who are infected with multi-drug resistant strains of the HIV virus do not benefit from taking “drug holidays”—structured interruptions in their antiretroviral treatment—a new study has found (New England Journal of Medicine 2003;349:837-46).

Drug holidays had been proposed as a method to regain drug sensitivity to antiretrovirals as well as to reduce drug toxicity and are increasingly popular among patients infected with HIV. However, new research indicates that interrupting treatment may actually be harmful, even if sensitive strains of the virus return.

Researchers led by Dr Jody Lawrence of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center enrolled …