Study sheds light on when to start antiretroviral therapy

Findings from a study published in the current issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, when "taken together with other studies published over the last few years," show that beginning people living with HIV on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) when their CD4 cell count is between 350 and 500 "appears to be beneficial over the long term. But for patients with a CD4 count above 500, the jury is still out," Michele Jonsson Funk, research assistant professor in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and lead author of the study, said, according to a UNC School of Medicine press release. The results are based on data collected from 9,455 patients from Europe, Australia and Canada between 1996 and 2009, the press release notes (9/26).