HIV Therapy: What is HAART? Video Transcript

Webcast Transcript

Doctors often turn to treatment guidelines, including ones published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

As new drugs become available, and as clinical experience changes, guidelines change too.

PETER REISS, MD: There are several sets of guidelines in various countries -- U.S. and non-U.S. They're helpful because they try to summarize what we know... The basis, the very basis is based on clinical trials, I would say. But anything after that is to a large extent expert opinion and is a constant -- is constantly shifting which means that these guidelines are constantly being adjusted.

ANNOUNCER: There are now more than a dozen drugs approved for use in HAART..

Expert opinion on how they should be combined changes.

But since 1996, the principle underlying HAART therapy has proved sound -- choose at least three drugs from two different categories, to fight the virus.

ANDREW CARR, MD: Certainly a few years ago everybody would have insisted that you start on two AZT-like drugs and a protease drug. And then we've learned really that two AZT-like drugs and a nonnucleoside -- so that's the third licensed family -- is just as good, if not better. .... They're probably not better because they're better drugs and more potent. They're better because they're easier to take and better tolerated.

ANNOUNCER: There's no cure for HIV.

But HAART therapy has significantly altered the course of the disease for many people.

ANDREW CARR, MD: The potent drugs became available late in 1996 and the hospital wards just emptied out and have stayed emptied out. And it's now an outpatient chronic disease.

Related Videos

Once-Daily Medicines for HIV Disease
Lipodystrophy in HIV Disease
HIV and Anemia: One Patient's Story
Coping With HIV Drugs: A Personal Story
Making The Decision To Start HIV Therapy