It is anticipated that availability of localized reference values for an extended range of peripheral blood lymphocyte phenotypes should supplement previously published reference values and enhance the utility of flow cytometric analysis undertaken in Switzerland.

The critical influence of chemokine biology on the outcome of allergic asthma continues to be highlighted in recent reports describing novel mechanisms by which eosinophils are recruited into the lung and local TH2-cell dominance is maintained. Also of considerable interest is the increasing emphasis currently being realized for structural cell participation, nonreceptor regulatory mechanisms, and the influence of susceptibility genes.

This randomized study evaluated the efficacy and tolerability of continued treatment with protease inhibitor plus nucleoside-analogue combination regimens (n=79) or a change to the simplified regimen of abacavir-lamivudine-zidovudine (n=84) in patients with suppressed human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA for > or = 6 months who did not have the reverse transcriptase 215 mutation. After a median follow-up of 84 weeks, virologic failure was 6% in the continuation and 15% in the simplified group (P=.081). Previous zidovudine monotherapy or dual therapy and archived reverse transcriptase resistance mutations in HIV-1 DNA at baseline were significant predictors of failure. Study treatment was discontinued because of adverse events in 20% of the continuation and 7% of the simplified group (P=.021). Simplification to abacavir-lamivudine-zidovudine significantly decreased nonfasting cholesterol and triglyceride levels; however, this switch strategy carries a risk of virologic failure when treatment history or resistance testing suggest the presence of archived resistance mutations to the simplified regimen.

The in vivo demonstration of an association between diminishing plasma HIV-RNA levels and the emergence of a circulating chemokine profile capable of inhibiting HIV replication corroborates recent in vitro observations and provides evidence for the restoration of chemokine capacity by HIV protease inhibitor-based therapy.

The performance of this antigen detection procedure is comparable to RNA PCR, thus providing a simple, high throughput alternative in monitoring the efficacy of antiretroviral treatment.