Study: Treatment
for HIV Should Begin Earlier

A new study has found that postponing treatment for people with HIV can almost double their risk of death, compared to people who get treatment early. The University of Washington-Seattle study, revealed at a conference in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, is the largest yet to examine the trade-offs between starting on HIV medications at diagnosis or waiting until later, when a person's immune system is already sufficiently damaged, the Associated Press reports.

Traditionally, newly infected patients without symptoms had been advised to wait to start on meds until their T-cell counts had dropped below 350 per cubic millimeter of blood (a healthy count is more than 800), the AP reports. Doctors had thought the side effects of the drugs -- heart and cholesterol problems, diarrhea, and nausea, to name a few -- were not worth it if the patient had yet to present symptoms of AIDS.

But the University of Washington study shows that participants who started treatment before their T cells dropped below 350 had a 70% improvement in survival than the participants who started treatment at below 350.

"The data are rather compelling that the risk of death appears to be higher if you wait then if you treat," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the AP. (The institute helped pay for the study.) Fauci also predicted that treatment guidelines would soon be revised in light of the new information, and that doctors would act on the study's findings quickly.

Some 56,300 Americans become infected with HIV each year. (The Advocate)