July 21, 2015 - NAM
by Keith Alcorn
Final follow up of the HPTN 052 study of treatment as prevention shows no evidence of HIV transmission from people with fully suppressed viral load to their partners, four years after the first results from the study demonstrated that early HIV treatment reduced the risk of HIV transmission by 96%. These results were presented by Professor Myron Cohen at the Eighth International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2015) in Vancouver, Canada, on Monday.
Describing the results as "the final word" from HPTN 052, Professor Cohen, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, presented a final intent-to-treat analysis of the study, which demonstrated in 2011 that early antiretroviral treatment greatly reduced the risk of HIV transmission to serodiscordant partners. The study compared the rates of transmission between two study arms: a deferred treatment arm, in which people diagnosed with HIV started treatment at a CD4 count of 250 cells/mm3 or if they developed an AIDS-defining illness prior to reaching this threshold; and an immediate treatment arm, in which people with CD4 cell counts in the range 350-550 cells/mm3 started treatment immediately. The interim analysis showed a 96% reduction in the risk of HIV transmission. Continue reading...