HIV/AIDS Treatment

HIV/AIDS Treatment

Medications

Over the past years, several drugs have become available to fight both the HIV infection and its associated infections and cancers. These drugs are called highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and have substantially reduced HIV-related complications and deaths. However, there is no cure for HIV/AIDS. Therapy is initiated and individualized under the supervision of a physician who is an expert in the care of HIV-infected patients. A combination of at least three drugs is recommended to suppress the virus from replicating and boost the immune system. The following are the different classes of medications used in treatment.

• Reverse transcriptase inhibitors: These drugs inhibit the ability of the virus to make copies of itself. The following are examples:



• Nucleoside or nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs). These include medications such as zidovudine (AZT/Retrovir), didanosine (ddI/Videx), zalcitabine (ddC/Hivid), stavudine (d4T/Zerit), lamivudine (3TC/Epivir), abacavir (ABC/Ziagen), emtricitabine (FTC/Emtriva), and tenofovir (Viread).



• Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIS) are commonly used in combination with NRTIs to help keep the virus from multiplying. Examples of NNRTIs are efavirenz (Sustiva), nevirapine (Viramune), and delavirdine (Rescriptor). Etravirine (Intelence), a newer member of this class of drugs, was approved by the U.S. FDA in 2008.



• Protease inhibitors (PIs): These medications interrupt virus replication at a later step in its life cycle, preventing cells from producing new viruses. These include ritonavir (Norvir), a lopinavir and ritonavir combination (Kaletra), saquinavir (Invirase), indinavir sulphate (Crixivan), amprenavir (Agenerase), fosamprenavir (Lexiva), darunavir (Prezista), atazanavir (Reyataz), tipranavir (Aptivus), and nelfinavir (Viracept). Using PIs with NRTIs reduces the chances that the virus will become resistant to medications.