Findings in patients who had no detectable virus in their blood
THURSDAY, Jan. 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Even when blood tests of HIV patients on antiretroviral drugs show no sign of the virus, it can still be replicating in lymphoid tissue, according to research published online Jan. 27 in Nature.
A team of international researchers led by Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago examined viral sequences in samples of lymph node and blood cells from three HIV-infected patients who had no detectable virus in their blood.
The investigators found that a viral reservoir in lymphoid tissue, which scientists believed held long-lived infected cells in a resting state, was being constantly replenished with infected cells.
“The challenge is to deliver drugs at clinically effective concentrations to where the virus continues to replicate within the patient,” corresponding author Steven Wolinsky, M.D., said in a university news release. Wolinsky is chief of infectious diseases at the Feinberg School of Medicine.
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