Faculty Bibliography

According to a study reported on Jan 31, 1996 at a scientific meeting in Washington DC, how long a patient survives from AIDS is directly linked to a doctor's experience in treating the disease. After AIDS was diagnosed, median survival among patients of doctors with the most experience with AIDS was 26 months, compared with 14 months for those treated by the least experienced doctors

By coating a heart device with an anti-clotting drug, European cardiologists have greatly improved success in keeping coronary arteries open after an obstruction has been removed. It was also found that the method greatly reduces the major complications that have plagued the device, called a stent. Although the authors of a new study on the method were cautious, American cardiologists called the improved stent a major advance in treating heart disease, the leading killer of Americans. A stent is a flexible mesh metal cylinder that acts as a scaffolding to prevent an artery from collapsing once an obstruction has been cleared after angioplasty

A chimpanzee has developed AIDS more than a decade after it was injected with HIV-1, the main AIDS virus, scientists reported at a scientific meeting here Tuesday. Transfusion of blood from the chimpanzee with AIDS to a healthy chimpanzee apparently produced AIDS in the second animal within a matter of months, suggesting that the virus mutated to become more virulent within the first chimpanzee. HIV-1 has been injected into more than 100 chimpanzees in research centers throughout the world to learn more about the disease since the virus was discovered in the early 1980s. But the two chimpanzees are the first animals to develop AIDS, Dr. Francis J. Novembre of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta told the more than 2,100 scientists at the meeting

Transfusion of blood from the chimpanzee with AIDS to a healthy chimpanzee apparently produced AIDS in the second animal within a matter of months, suggesting that the virus mutated to become more virulent within the first chimpanzee. The count of a special type of white cell in the blood critical for immune function, CD4, fell to very low levels in both chimpanzees. The CD4 count is a standard measurement of the progression of the AIDS virus. The first chimpanzee to develop AIDS was inoculated with the AIDS virus three times, beginning in 1984 and through 1987. The chimpanzee did not develop symptoms of the disease AIDS until March 1995. Tests showed a sharp decline in the CD4 count, to about 10 cells per microliter of blood. The normal count ranges from 800 to 1,000. A biopsy of a lymph node showed severe depletion of lymphocytes, a finding typical of AIDS.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh said at a scientific meeting on Jan 30, 1996 that a new test that measures the amount of HIV in blood predicts the progression of infection to disease sooner and more accurately than the standard test

[Francis J. Novembre] said his team was studying additional data to determine whether AIDS developed in the two chimpanzees as an oddity caused by a mutant strain, or whether it takes many years for chimpanzees to develop AIDS. Nevertheless, the findings may shed new light on earlier studies in which a number of chimpanzees have been injected with experimental AIDS vaccines. Because chimpanzees have not been known to develop AIDS, many scientists have questioned the validity of any vaccine studies in the primates. The first chimpanzee to develop AIDS was inoculated with the AIDS virus three times, beginning in 1984 and through 1987. The chimpanzee did not develop symptoms of the disease AIDS until March 1995

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh said their test also gives a better indication of a patient's chance of surviving for five years. It can be used to establish a system of stages of infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in much the same way that doctors stage colon and rectal cancer, Hodgkins disease and other types of cancer, they said. Thus, the new test might be used to help determine which patients need anti-HIV treatment and when, said Dr. John Mellors, who led the team. The researchers compared the new and standard tests on samples collected over 10 years from 181 HIV-infected patients who enrolled in a study paid for by the National Institutes of Health. The samples have been kept frozen

The two marketed drugs are AZT and 3TC, which the Glaxo-Wellcome company makes under the brand names Retrovir and Epivir. The experimental drug is Merck's indinavir, a member of a new class of anti-AIDS drugs known as protease inhibitors. This week Merck is asking the Food and Drug Administration for approval to market the drug as Crixivan. Merck officials said they did not know how much the drug would cost. The drug combination's effect has been measured only in terms of the amount of HIV in the blood and a standard laboratory test, the CD-4 count. The study was not designed to determine how the combination affects illness from HIV infection and AIDS

WASHINGTON - A combination of an experimental anti-AIDS virus drug and two licensed ones appears to be the most powerful AIDS therapy ever tested on infected patients, a researcher from the experimental drug's developer said at a scientific meeting Monday. The three-drug combination reduced the amount of HIV - the AIDS virus - by 99 percent to levels that could not be detected by standard laboratory tests in 24 of 26 patients. The effect has lasted for nearly six months in one study, said Dr. Emilio Emini a researcher at Merck, which developed the experimental drug. The two marketed drugs are AZT and 3TC, which the Glaxo-Wellcome company makes as Retrovir and Epivir. The experimental drug is Merck's indinavir, a member of a new class of anti-AIDS drugs known as protease inhibitors. This week Merck & Co. is asking the Food and Drug Administration for approval to market the drug as Crixivan. Merck officials said they did not know how much the drug would cost

A combination of an experimental anti-AIDS drug and two licensed ones appears to be the most powerful AIDS therapy ever tested on infected patients, a researcher from the experimental drug's developer said at a scientific meeting in Washington on Jan 29, 1996. The two marketed drugs are AZT and 3TC from Glaxo-Wellcome. The experimental drug is Merck's indinavir