AZT and Acyclovir Combination *****

Acyclovir (Zovirax), a readily available prescription drug, appears to work synergistically with AZT, meaning that
the combination may be a better AIDS treatment than either one alone. Several studies of this combination are now going on; for a list of the studies, see AmFAR Directory of Experimental Treatments for AIDS and ARC, published by the American Foundation for AIDS Research, (212) 333-3118. Trials are planned or underway in France, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Denmark, Australia, and the U.S.
Meanwhile a number of physicians and patients are using this drug combination--sometimes as a half dose of AZT combined with a full dose of acyclovir--but few physicians are willing to speak publicly about it, because the combination has not been approved and, according to the October 1987 edition of the AmFAR Directory, no confirmatory data is available.
AIDS Treatment News hereby releases what may be the first published data on the use of this combination in the treatment of AIDS and ARC.
Project Inform, in San Francisco, CA, filed a Freedom of Information Act request and obtained extensive internal
documentation of the large double-blind placebo-controlled AZT trial with 282 patients. One paragraph of this documentation concerned the combination of AZT and acyclovir. We reproduce the paragraph here:
"Seventy of the 282 patients enrolled in this trial (25%) received acyclovir (ACV) in addition to their study medication.
Thirty-four were patients randomized to receive AZT ... no evidence of increase hematologic toxicity .... Only 2 of the
34 patients (6%) who received ACV in addition to AZT developed opportunistic infections over the course of the trial compared to 22 of 111 (20%) of the AZT recipients who did not receive ACV during the study."
Researchers should consider the possibility that the benefit of including acyclovir with AZT in the treatment of
AIDS or ARC may be even greater than the above figures suggest. For the AZT patients who also received acyclovir presumably had an infection which the acyclovir was being used to treat, so as a group they were probably sicker to begin with than the AZT patients who did not receive acyclovir. Even so, they did much better.
It is too early to know for sure that the combination is useful. We will report more information as it becomes
available.