RESEARCH at the Royal Free Hospital has uncovered a potential crisis in the fight to treat HIV.
Following a six-year study of 16,593 patients, academics from the hospital and University College London found a growing number of patients are in danger of exhausting treatment options.
Although there is no cure to HIV, it can be treated through highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART).
The treatment, which attacks the virus that causes Aids, helps patients stay healthy and active much longer than they would without the drugs.
The treatment is highly toxic and gruelling and many choose not to go ahead with it.
The research did show an increase in patients willing to take the treatment. But for a growing proportion the drugs are failing.
Although HIV treatment constantly develops to deal with patient immunity, the new drugs tend to retain elements of the old ones. But the fear is that unless totally new drugs are created, patients will build a “cross resistance” and exhaust their options.
Caroline Sabin, professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the Royal Free and University College Medical School, said there was an urgent need for further research into new low toxic drugs, but could see potential problems.
She said: “HAART remains the best treatment for slowing the progression of the Aids virus and prolonging life. But new drugs, which are not associated with cross resistance to existing drugs, are urgently needed for the small group of people for whom treatment options are in danger of becoming exhausted.”
But the research also suggested potential pitfalls even with the new drugs.
“However, experience shows that preliminary reports of new drugs being associated with minimal cross resistance to other drugs are often followed by less positive findings.”
More than 50,000 people in the UK are living with HIV.