BIO SCI 45 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Shingles, Opportunistic Infection, Immunosuppression
7 Oct 2016
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Symptoms/signs: fever, sweats, malaise, swollen lymph nodes, rash. Western blots: used for confirmation of immunoassays. Pcr: used for confirmation or when acute infection suspected. By about 2 months after infection, viral load reaches a steady state ( set point ) Disease progression correlates with set point: higher set point = faster progression. Symptoms generally dependent on cd4 cell count: cd4 less than or equal to 200 cells/mm^3 threshold. Who should be treated: recommended for all hiv-infected individuals to reduce risk of disease progression, and to prevent transmission of hiv. Completely inhibit virus with combination of drugs: usually results in restoration of immunity (though not completely) Sometimes not possible: resistance of virus to drugs, poor adherence to medications, side effects. Prior to highly active anti-retroviral therapy, life expectancy is about 10 years. Now, a 20-year-old hiv-positive adult in us or canada is expected to live into their early 70s: this approached life expectancy of general population.
