Some time ago, the news that the world's first female HIV-infected person or has been cured has aroused thousands of waves and attracted widespread attention around the world.
Especially for people living with HIV, this brings new hope for them to end AIDS. As soon as the news came out, some HIV-infected people in China have begun to seek hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to treat AIDS, and some even affect normal treatment.
"After the news broke, patients inquired about the success of AIDS cures almost every day." Zhang Tong, director of the Infection Center of Beijing You'an Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, said that patients are understandably eager to treat their diseases, and doctors are also excited to hear such news, but at this stage, HIV-infected patients should set the pursuit of long-term treatment success as a practical and desirable treatment goal.
HIV antiretroviral treatment persistence is key, and achieving long-term treatment success is the goal
Although the current international cases of successful treatment of HIV-infected people are not of significance for the time being, they still bring new ideas and hope for treatment. Director Zhang Tong said: "It is our goal that HIV-infected people can get a wide range of functional cures, but the very few successful cases of AIDS cure are not universal, the success of these cases often has many additional conditions, and the probability of successful matching of infected people is very small, so HIV-infected patients still need to adhere to long-term standardized scientific antiviral treatment." The first case of HIV infection admitted to Beijing You'an Hospital in 1990, now in his 70s, has been adhering to antiviral treatment, the condition is very well controlled, there are many such cases, so patients must have confidence. ”
Although there is currently no cure for AIDS, infected people can control the viral load of HIV at very low, even undetectable levels, through standard antiviral treatment. If an infected person stops taking the drug during treatment, the latent virus will reactivate and replicate rapidly, so the patient still needs to take the drug for life. So, how do we define treatment success? "Treatment success should be defined with both short-term and long-term treatment goals." Director Zhang Tong emphasized that at present, the short-term treatment goal of HIV-infected patients is to quickly achieve viral suppression, so that infected people can resume work and life like ordinary people. "In the process of AIDS treatment, regardless of the immune function of the infected person and how long he has been infected, once HIV is diagnosed, it is necessary to quickly start antiviral therapy to save the infected person's immune system to the greatest extent. The long-term treatment goals are to achieve sustained and strong virus suppression, maintain long-term drug safety, optimize treatment regimens to ensure adherence, and improve quality of life and satisfaction, in short, to enable infected people to achieve a better and healthier life. ”
Director Zhang Tong also added that infected people may face many difficulties in the process of the next few decades, so it is also necessary to help patients build confidence in treatment and encourage them to constantly seek help from doctors and return to normal work and life.
Successful treatment is not the same as cure, and experts emphasize that infected people still need lifelong medication
Of course, achieving short-term and long-term treatment goals for people living with HIV is not an easy task. "To treat AIDS, we must first receive scientific and standardized antiviral therapy, and then we can achieve short-term and rapid suppression of viral replication and long-term treatment success." Director Zhang Tong introduced that however, several misunderstandings are often seen in the process of patient treatment: the first is that antiviral drugs do not need to be taken every day, they can be taken when they think of it, and they can be made up later; The second is to adjust the drug or dose by yourself when encountering drug side effects; The third is that the network or patients are more credible than doctors; The fourth is that the treatment expectation is too high, and I always want to stop the drug.
Director Zhang Tong explained that AIDS and hypertension are not the same, high blood pressure missed for a short time, can be recovered quickly, but AIDS drugs missed, the virus will quickly replicate, repeated many times may produce drug resistance, recovery to a stable level is more difficult; Many drugs have certain toxic side effects, and the strength of toxic side effects must be communicated with the doctor and follow the doctor's advice; Everyone's constitution is different from other underlying diseases, and the medication is naturally different, and you cannot trust the recommendations of netizens and patients to take drugs without authorization; Even if the virus is not detected in the body, it does not mean that the virus has been completely eliminated, and once the drug is stopped, it may "reappear".
The reason why patients have these misunderstandings, some drug treatment effects are not satisfactory is an important reason. Director Zhang Tong shared that nowadays, the treatment of AIDS has entered the era of integrase inhibitors, and now the world's major guidelines have taken the compound single tablet drug containing integrase as the first recommendation, the way to take the drug is convenient, only one tablet a day, the drug resistance barrier is high, and the impact on sleep, bone, and kidney is relatively small. In addition, such compound single-tablet anti-AIDS innovative drugs are also included in the national medical insurance, which can meet the short-term and long-term treatment goals of HIV-infected patients at the same time, which is of positive significance for achieving the success of long-term treatment of infected patients.
In recent years, innovative drugs are being approved for marketing, and the treatment of HIV infection will become more convenient and effective in the future. Director Zhang Tong emphasized: "Patients must follow the doctor's professional advice, adhere to scientific and standardized treatment, and believe that they can achieve 'long-term treatment success' and return to normal life." ”
From: Guangming Network