Current HIV Research - Volume 8, Issue 2, 2010

A vaccine-induced cellular immune response to simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in the gut mucosal tissue may prevent the establishment or severity of new SIV infection. An oral Clostridium perfringens expressing SIV p27 (Cpp27) vaccine that delivers SIV p27 to the gut was evaluated for its ability to prime multifunctional cellular immunity in the gut mucosa. Gut Peyer's patches dendritic cells matured in response to in vitr Read More

Chromium is an essential micronutrient; chromium deficiency has been reported to cause insulin resistance, hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia. The aim was to investigate the effect of chromium supplementation on insulinresistance, other metabolic abnormalities, and body composition in people living with HIV. This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Fifty-two HIV-positive subjects with elevated glucose Read More

Objective: We examined the impact of HIV voluntary counseling and testing on self-reported behavioral risks three months after HIV testing. Design: Cohort study comparing self-reported risk behaviors prior to and three months after HIV testing. Setting: Clinica Familiar Luis Angel Garcia, an HIV specialty clinic located in a Guatemalan National Hospital. Subjects, Participants: 144 people undergoing HIV testing were enrolled. 44 w Read More

Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) are the basis of antiretroviral treatment of HIV-positive patients. Several studies have shown decreased fertility and fecundity among HIV-positive women under antiretroviral treatment. Oocyte impaired competence has been hypothesized to be one of the main mechanisms underlying of this decreased fertility. NRTI side effects are thought to be due to the induced mitochon Read More

The wide scale application of dried blood spots (DBS) as a collection tool for low-cost HIV drug resistance testing requires a greater understanding of the accuracy of DBS for genotype analysis and the stability of DBS under various environmental conditions. Analysis of a 50μl DBS via a single amplicon, nested PCR-based in-house assay (the Burnet genotyping assay) showed an average nucleotide concordance of 98.9% with pl Read More

Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) represents one of the most common types of a non-AIDS-defining tumour that occurs in the HIV population, and its incidence is increasing in the post Highly Active Anti-retroviral Therapy (HAART) era. Despite the aggressiveness of that disease, the outcome of patients with HIV-HL has improved with better, combined antineoplastic and antiretroviral approaches. New and effective antiretroviral d Read More

IL-18 is a pleiotropic and multifunctional proinflammatory cytokine that is often produced in response to a viral infection. The biological activities of the cytokine are tightly controlled by its natural antagonist, IL-18 binding protein (IL-18BP), as well as by activation of caspase-1, which cleaves the precursor form of IL-18 into its biologically mature form. The cytokine plays an important role in both innate and adaptive antiviral imm Read More

HERMES is a prospective study, including all treatment-naive patients attending scheduled visits at hospitals in the CISAI group in 2007. The present cross-sectional analysis aims to assess the baseline prevalence and characteristics of Metabolic Syndrome (MS) in a population of HIV-positive treatment-naive patients. MS was diagnosed using the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) definitions. A total of 292 subject Read More

The goal of this work is to determine whether relationship power in couples and sexual double standard can predict the risk of sexually transmitted infections/human immunodeficiency virus (STI/HIV) as a function of cultural and gender differences. The sample was made up of 689 adolescents living in Spain, of both sexes, aged between 14 and 19 years, who were sexually active in the past six months and who had a stable part Read More

Objective: To compare the treatment outcomes and mortality in a rural community-based ART (CBART) program with a hospital-based ART program in the same district. Methods: The study design was a non-randomized cohort study consisting of 185 persons living with HIV (PLWHIV) in the CBART cohort and 200 PLWHIV in the hospital cohort. Eligibility for both cohorts was: being HIV-infected and eligible for ART, being treatment n Read More