ICAAC, Lipodystrophy; IDSA: Conference Summaries on Web
Until recently it was unusual for patients to find out what leading medical specialists and other experts were saying about treatment for their conditions. But today experts summarize important AIDS-related conferences on the Web, often within days of when they happened, so persons anywhere can follow leading-edge work and see where it may be relevant to them. Many of these summaries are written primarily for medical professionals, but they are available to anyone; others are written primarily for patients and other interested non-professionals.Several important AIDS-related conferences took place in September 2000, and expert summaries are now available for at least three of them. Reports are still being written as we go to press; the topics listed below are only a selection to show the range of information available.
ICAAC (The 40th Annual Meeting of the Interscience Conference on
Antimicrobial Agents and
Chemotherapy), Toronto, Sept. 17-20
Medscape has ICAAC coverage on resistance and replication; benefits of antiretroviral therapy vs. risk of cardiac disease; switching antiretrovirals; use of immunologic and virologic measurements; drug levels and clinical implications; treatment interruptions; when to start HAART; new antiretrovirals; IL-2; efavirenz interactions; Kaletra; immune reconstitution with HAART, and other topics. More than 20 CME-accredited articles based in part on the conference will be posted later.
Note: This site requires registration the first time you use it, but the registration is free.
The Body includes reports on pharmacoeconomics and epidemiology of antibiotic use; drug-drug interactions; protease-sparing combinations; new antiretrovirals; adherence; primary HIV infection; viral co-infection with HIV; resistance testing; lipodystrophy and metabolic complications; strategies for switching antiretrovirals; changing epidemiology of HIV disease.
HIV and Hepatitis.com includes switching from protease inhibitors to efavirenz or nevirapine; experimental treatments for hepatitis B; long-term data on efavirenz+d4T+3TC in treatment-naive patients... More reports are being written.
The official site for this ICAAC conference has searchable abstracts online. Use it to look for any drug, condition, author, etc. of interest. Note that all the abstracts except the late breakers were written months before the meeting.
2nd International Workshop on Adverse Drug Reactions and
Lipodystrophy, Toronto, Sept. 13-15
HIV and Hepatitis.com includes articles on low dose human growth hormone treatment of body-fat changes; international cohort studies on prevalence and risk factors of lipodystrophy; the first randomized study of treatment for lipodystrophy "in which metformin therapy was shown to reduce both insulin resistance and intra-abdominal fat accumulation"; animal and human studies on pathogenesis of lipodystrophy; body composition measurements; glucose metabolism studies; vascular disease; bone disease; mitochondrial toxicity.
The Body includes physiology of lipodystrophy; mitochondrial studies; growth hormone treatment; a metabolic study of indinavir on healthy HIV-negative volunteers.
NATAP (National AIDS Treatment Advocacy Project) includes human growth hormone studies and treatment; mitochondrial toxicity, including its measurement in sperm.
IDSA (38th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America), New Orleans, Sept. 7-10
The Body has a summary of each day by Keith Henry, M.D., covering a wide range of topics presented at the conference, with a clinical focus on practical information for physicians.
Medscape will have summaries of the IDSA conference, but they were not online as we went to press.
Additional Summaries
This listing is not complete, as more summaries will be added on these and other Web sites.
source: AIDS Treatment News
