HIV AIDS News [International Conference on AIDS (12th: 1998: Geneva, Switzerland)]

"The new goal of antiretroviral therapy is to reduce levels of circulating
virus to undetectable limits for as long as possible to achieve maximum benefit,"
said Emilio Emini, M.D., vice president of Merck Research Laboratories, New
Jersey, USA, where CRIXIVAN was discovered. "With CRIXIVAN we are seeing
dramatic and sustained improvements never before thought possible."
Studies Confirm Efficacy
In September 1997, the New England Journal of Medicine published the
results of two landmark studies which demonstrate the powerful and durable
effect of CRIXIVAN in triple therapy.
Updated 100-week results of Merck Protocol 035 were presented by Roy
Gulick, M.D., a co-author of the paper who is Assistant Professor of Medicine,
Cornell University Medical College, and Medical Director, Chelsea Center, The
Cornell Clinical Trials Unit, at the 37th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial
Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) in October 1997. The results of the study,
which recruited 97 AZT-experienced patients, demonstrated the durable power
of CRIXIVAN in combination:
* About 80 percent of patients (22 of 28, all AZT-experienced) taking
triple therapy with CRIXIVAN, AZT and 3TC sustained "undetectable"
levels of virus (less than 500 copies/mL) for almost two years.
* The median decrease in viral load from baseline was 2.12 log10
copies/mL, and the median increase in CD4 cell count was 230
cells/mm3.
"In this study, triple combination therapy with indinavir had beneficial
effects for most patients, significantly reducing blood levels of HIV in about 80
percent of patients for up to two years," said Dr. Gulick. "In my opinion, tripledrug therapy including a generally well-tolerated, highly effective protease
inhibitor should be the standard of care for patients with HIV."