Healthy Outlook Blog

New Computer Modeling Analyzes Drug Therapies for HIV Patients

By Karen Berger | Posted December 1 2010

AIDS, drug therapy HIV, Everyday Health, health, Health Information, HIV, innovation, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Motivation, Research, Technology

Matching a patient with HIV to the right combination of drugs can be time consuming and frustrating for physician and patient alike. With literally hundreds of combinations of various HIV and AIDS drug therapies, physicians have to consider the patient’s viral load, the strain of HIV, possible interactions with other medications the patient is taking, other health issues, side effects, and other factors. The result: an expensive process of trial and error.

But a new computer modeling program launched by RDI, a non-profit UK based research group, aims to change all that.

The new HIV Treatment Response Prediction System (HIV-TrePS) uses complex computer models to analyze data from tens of thousands of HIV and AIDS patients worldwide. Using the Internet, physicians enter patient’s data such as blood test results, other drugs being used, and responses to treatment, and within seconds, the system predicts patient response to hundreds of possible combinations of HIV drugs.

The computer models are based on data from more than 60,000 HIV and AIDS patients who have been treated in hospitals around the globe. The HIV-TRePS system compares patient data to information in its database to recommend treatments based on correlations between the patient and the models in the database.

Dr. Julio Montaner, past President of the International AIDS Society, and Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV & AIDS in Vancouver, Canada, commented that making the data of thousands of different patients available to doctors has the potential to improve outcomes for HIV/AIDS patients, especially in areas where resources are scarce. RDI is working on an application of the program in less developed regions such as Africa, where medical care and resources are limited, and where fewer treatment options are available.

The model estimates how likely it is that any given combination of drugs will reduce the amount of virus in the blood to below-detectable levels, based on the experiences of other patients. RDI reported accuracy levels of approximately 80 percent during development and testing, and says finding effective treatments more efficiently will reduce both the number of drugs and the cost of drugs used to treat any one patient.

According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV AIDS, AIDS has killed more than 25 million people between 1981 and 2007, and an estimated 33 million people were living with HIV as of 2007.

CONNECT THE DOTS

December 1 is World Aids Day, which raises awareness of HIV/AIDS. The RDI HIV Resistance Response Database Initiative is a U.K. based not-for-profit organization whose mission is to improve the clinical management of HIV infection through the research into and application of bioinformatives and pharmacogenomics (tailoring drug therapy on the basis of genetic information).

ABOUT OUR BLOG

Our blog is a collection of thoughts and stories that serve as inspiration for what healthymagination is—a shared commitment to creating better health for more people. It’s written by the people behind healthymagination, as well as members of our advisory board and guest contributors from around the web.

You might like

Study Probes How Sad Movies Make Viewers Happy – Health News – Health.comSurprisingly, watching sad movies actually makes people feel happier, because it evokes thoughts about their loved ones, according to a new study. “People seem to use tragedies as a way to reflect on the important relationships in their own life, to count their blessings,” lead author Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, an associate professor of communication at Ohio [...]
Green Tea: The Healthy DrinkBeth Reardon, MS, RD, LDN, director of integrative nutrition at Duke Integrative Medicine, wants more people to drink green tea—three to five cups a day, she says, to enhance wellness.
Massage: It’s Not Just for Pampering AnymoreNowadays, more people are hiring massage therapists not as an occasional extravagance, but as part of their health regimen. A 2011 consumer survey by the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) shows that 86 percent of people see massage as beneficial to their overall health and wellness.