Search

Certain opportunistic infections appear to increase the risk of death in some AIDS patients. Researchers followed 187 HIV-infected patients who tested positive for toxoplasmosis and had CD4 T cell levels below 200 but had no AIDS-defining event. A 10-year increase in age doubled the risk of death in these patients and a further decline in CD4 counts also increased the risk slightly. However, infection with Pneumocystis, cytomegalovirus or toxoplasmosis all increased the risk of death 10-fold.

The objective of the study was to determine retrospectively which substitutions in the reverse transcriptase (RT) gene are selected in vivo during nucleoside RT inhibitors (NRTI) containing regimen in HIV‐2 infected subjects. Thirty‐four HIV‐2 patients having received NRTI‐containing regimen with available specimens and amplifiable RT gene were studied. Analyses of RT gene were undertaken after a median NRTI exposure of 51 months (range: 5–128). Mutations at positions known to be involved in HIV‐1 resistance were observed in 26/34 patients. Selection of Q151M mutation was observed in nine out of 34 isolates (26%) after a median NRTIs exposure of 41 months (range: 12–77). In 8/9 cases, Q151M mutation was associated with other substitutions at positions known to be involved in HIV‐1 resistance: K65R (n = 6), D67N (n = 1), N69S or T (n = 2), K70R (n = 3), M184V (n = 4), S215Y (n = 1). Compared with HIV‐1 infection, there is a high frequency of selection of Q151M mutation in HIV‐2 infected patients receiving various combinations of NRTIs. In these highly thymidine analogue pretreated patients, the selection of thymidine analogue mutations was low suggesting that the pathway to resistance is very different between these two viruses. J. Med. Virol. 74:197–201, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.