Significant Changes in HIV Antigen Level in the Serum of Patients Treated with Azidothymidine

Abstract

To the Editor: Antiviral therapy against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the causative agent of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), can be assessed by clinical, immunologic, and virologic measures.¹ The use of retroviral isolation from peripheral-blood mononuclear leukocytes of patients treated with antiviral agents may be limited by the time requirements, difficulty, and expense of most culture assays.² It has recently been shown that HIV core antigen can be detected in the serum of patients with AIDS and that increases in the concentration of this antigen may correlate with clinical deterioration.³ We report here the results of testing for HIV . . .