Safer HIV medicine

Patients suffering from chronic HIV infection are no longer under the risk of the deadly drug treatment reaction thanks to advances in genetic screening technology.

Research conducted at the Centre of Clinical Immunology and Biomedical Statistics (CCIBS) at Royal Perth Hospital and Murdoch University has revealed that sensitivity to the commonly used HIV drug, Abacavir can be identified through looking at a patient's individual immune responses.

"Drug therapy that controls HIV spread has substantially improved patients' health, however, we have found that up to eight per cent of individuals of European descent are predisposed to develop a potentially life threatening hypersensitive reaction to the drug," said CCIBS researcher Dr Annalise Martin.

The HIV virus has the ability to recognise and mutate itself to individual HLA types, the surface recognition molecules that are unique to individual immune system. Using genetic screening, the scientists at CCIBS were able to identify individuals with the HLA subtype found in people who had previously suffered from a hypersensitive reaction.

After excluding those identified individuals from the group of participating chronic HIV infection patients who were undergoing drug treatment, the study achieved a complete cessation of the incidence of Abacavir hypersensitivity.

"This is the first routine use of genetic testing to eliminate the risk of a potentially life threatening drug reaction," said Dr Martin.

"These findings may also apply to other drug reactions that are related to the immune response of the patient."

The scientists are now aiming to expand their work to include the possible interactions between the natural immune response and man made drugs to identify the exact molecular mechanisms that are inducing drug hypersensitive reactions.