CHICAGO — Radioimmunotherapy in conjunction with antiretroviral triple therapy can effectively kill HIV-infected cells from patients, a new study has shown.
"The cells are being steadily killed by a dose of radiation," explained Ekaterina Dadachova, PhD, professor of radiology, microbiology, and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York.
Dr. Dadachova presented the research to an excited audience at the Radiological Society of North America 99th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting. She began her talk by reminding the audience that the conference started on December 1, World AIDS Day.
The safety of radioimmunotherapy is well established in the field of oncology, where tumor cell burdens are approximately 1000 times greater than those seen in HIV patients being treated with triple therapy. This makes HIV a comparatively light load for radioimmunotherapy, according to those most familiar with the technique.
Current treatment options for HIV include antiretrovirals, which can dramatically increase a patient's lifespan and has transformed HIV from an acute disease. "HIV is now a chronic disease, but people are still dying from it and there is still no cure," Dr. Dadachova said.
Medications suppress viral reproduction, but they do not kill infected cells. Antiretrovirals also have a host of problems, including high cost, toxicity, nonadherence, and drug resistance.
Most important, viremia returns after treatment cessation. This is because both cellular and anatomic reservoirs of HIV in the body maintain the infection.
They promised they will overcome this with further research.
