Treatment in women

STIMULATION OF BLOOD CELL PRODUCTION. Because many patients with AIDS suffer from abnormally low levels of both red and white blood cells, they may be given medications to stimulate blood cell production। Epoetin alfa (erythropoietin) may be given to anemic patients. Patients with low white blood cell counts may be given filgrastim or sargramostim.

Treatment in women

Treatment of pregnant women with HIV is particularly important because anti-retroviral therapy has been shown to reduce transmission to the infant by 65%.

Prognosis

No cure for AIDS has been discovered. Treatment stresses aggressive combination drug therapy for those patients with access to the expensive medications and who tolerate them adequately. The use of these multi-drug therapies, called highly active antiretroviral therapies or HAART, has significantly reduced the numbers of deaths in the United states resulting from AIDS. The data is still inconclusive, but the potential exists to prolong life indefinitely using these and other drug therapies to boost the immune system, keep the virus from replicating, and ward off opportunistic infections and malignancies.

Prognosis after the latency period depends on the patient's specific symptoms and the organ systems affected by the disease. Patients with AIDS-related lymphomas of the central nervous system die within two to three months of diagnosis; those with systemic lymphomas may survive for eight to ten months.