Predicting the outcomes of treatment to eradicate the latent reservoir for HIV-1.

ABSTRACT: Massive research efforts are now underway to develop a cure for HIV infection, allowing patients to discontinue lifelong combination antiretroviral therapy (ART). New latency-reversing agents (LRAs) may be able to purge the persistent reservoir of latent virus in resting memory CD4(+) T cells, but the degree of reservoir reduction needed for cure remains unknown. Here we use a stochastic model of infection dynamics to estimate the efficacy of LRA needed to prevent viral rebound after ART interruption. We incorporate clinical data to estimate population-level parameter distributions and outcomes. Our findings suggest that ∼2,000-fold reductions are required to permit a majority of patients to interrupt ART for 1 y without rebound and that rebound may occur suddenly after multiple years. Gre

SUBMITTER: Hill AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4169952 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature