ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9602030012
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO
SOURCE: San Francisco Examiner|
A promising experimental AIDS drug not only packs a powerful anti-viral wallop in the bloodstream of sick patients, but also offers them improved health and prolonged survival, a large new study shows.
However, it is not yet known whether the drug, ritonavir, is strong and persistent enough to protect patients' health over the long term.
The new results are consistent with a study released earlier this week to great acclaim among AIDS researchers, showing that ritonavir (brand name Norvir) is capable of almost complete suppression of HIV in the blood of some patients.
Thursday's announcement not only corroborates this important lab work, but takes it one step further by showing actual clinical benefit.
The study of 1,100 patients from 67 research sites around the world, released at the Third Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Washington, D.C., shows that patients taking the new drug died or got sick at one-half the rate of patients not on the drug.
Over a seven-month period, 13 percent of those getting the drug died or developed new AIDS-related illnesses, compared with 27 percent of those not on the drug, said Dr. John Leonard of Abbott Laboratories, who led the research group that designed and studied the drug. Of patients on the drug, 4.8 percent died during the course of the study, compared with 8.4 percent of those not on the drug.
``These findings represent the first hint that there may be very substantial clinical benefit from this class of drug, when used in combination with existing anti-viral drugs,'' said Dr. Mark Goldsmith of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology at the University of California at San Francisco.
``What is extremely important is that we observe these patients to find if the benefit is sustained substantially over time,'' he said.
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