FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, Oct. 12, 1995 A new multicenter
study will determine if monitoring levels of HIV, the virus that
causes AIDS, in a person's blood can keep patients healthier
longer by helping doctors make better treatment decisions. The
study, sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is recruiting 1,100 HIV-infected
people through the NIAID-supported Terry Beirn Community
Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS (CPCRA), a community-
based clinical trials network. CPCRA study 036 is comparing two
strategies for deciding when to change anti-HIV therapy: 1)
current clinical practice alone (monitoring the development of
or changes in HIV symptoms as well as blood levels of CD4+ T
cells, immune cells destroyed by HIV) versus 2) current clinical
practice plus periodic tests measuring the amount of HIV, or
viral load, in a given amount of blood. "Scientifically and
medically, this is an extremely important study that addresses a
major gap in knowledge," comments A