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Immunological response to highly active antiretroviral therapy in children with clinically stable HIV-1 infection.

Rosenblatt HM, Stanley KE, Song LY, Johnson GM, Wiznia AA, Nachman SA, Krogstad PA,

Allergy and Immunology Section, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston 77030, USA. hmrosenb@TexasChildrensHospital.org

We studied changes in 60 immunological parameters after the administration of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 192 clinically stable antiretroviral drug-experienced HIV-1-infected children 4 months-17 years old. The studied immunological parameters included standard lymphocyte subsets and lymphocyte surface markers of maturation and activation. The most significant changes during the 48-week study period were seen for CD8(+), CD8(+)CD62L(+)CD45RA(+), CD8(+)CD38(+)HLA-DR(+), and CD4(+) T cell percentages (P < .0001 for all parameters). These changes suggest that significant decreases in the expression of activation markers and increases in the expression of naive markers in the CD8(+) T cell population may be related to better virologic control in these HIV-1-infected children, who had relatively stable immune function at the initiation of HAART. At week 44 of HAART, the major immunological parameters in these HIV-1-infected children moved from baseline values to about halfway to two-thirds of the way toward the values in healthy, uninfected children.

Published 4 July 2005 in J Infect Dis, 192(3): 445-55.
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