Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: Persistent immune activation and inflammation has emerged as a major challenge of the modern HIV treatment era. While immune activation, inflammatory, and coagulation markers typically decline during suppressive antiretroviral therapy (ART), they remain abnormally elevated in many HIV-infected individuals and predict subsequent mortality as well as several non-AIDS comorbidities like cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and neurocognitive dysfunction. The goal of the current lecture is to summarize the current state of our knowledge regarding the underlying causes of persistent immune activation during ART-mediated viral suppression as well as the link between persistent immune activation and morbidity and mortality in this setting. Several recent studies have linked surrogate markers of this persistent inflammatory state to clinical outcomes, validating persistent immune activation as a viable therapeutic target. Other recent studies have helped clarify the roles of persistent HIV expression and/or replication, microbial translocation, and co-infections in driving this persistent inflammatory state, identifying specific targets for novel interventions. Lastly, some commonly used medications with anti-inflammatory properties have recently been shown to decrease immune activation in this setting and may hold promise in future clinical event trials.
Author: P. Hunt
Institution: University of California, San Francisco
Language: English
Topic: HIV Research and Treatment
Subfield: Virology
Field: Immunology and Microbiology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,900
OpenAlex ID: W2021542810