Treatment of HIV Infection — Progress in Perspective

Abstract

ALTHOUGH the past five years have brought advances in treatment, the article by Hamilton and associates in this issue of the Journal demonstrates that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as a viral infection and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) as an illness are still inexorably progressive.¹ The Veterans Affairs Cooperative Study Group on AIDS Treatment randomly assigned patients with symptomatic HIV infection and CD4+ counts between 0.2×10⁹ and 0.5×10⁹ per liter (200 and 500 per cubic millimeter) (mean, 0.355 per liter [355 per cubic millimeter]) to receive either placebo or zidovudine (1500 mg daily) until an AIDS-defining illness developed or . . .