Active clinical trials for "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome"

The overall aim of the project is to evaluate rifabutin (RBT) as a replacement for rifampicin (RMP), for the combined treatment of tuberculosis and HIV infection. RBT represents an alternative to RMP for HIV infected patients as its half-life is longer and the enzymatic induction effect appears to be less important on the associated antiretroviral therapy (ART) drugs. This phase II trial is to determine precisely the pharmacokinetics parameters of RBT in combination with different ART regimens in Vietnamese HIV infected patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, in order to define optimal doses that will be further tested in a larger phase III trial comparing safety, tolerability and efficacy of RBT and RMP regimens.

A phase Ib partially blinded pilot study to evaluate the safety and immunological effects of PENNVAX-B with or without co-administration of constructs containing DNA encoding for the expression of either IL-12 or IL-15. Primary objectives To determine the safety of HIV-1 DNA constructs (PENNVAX-B). To determine the safety and optimal doses of the IL-12 and the IL-15 adjuvant constructs when given with PENNVAX-B. Secondary objectives To compare the various vaccine groups for their immunological responses to several HIV-1 antigens, utilizing the ELISPOT assay. To analyze antibody responses to the vaccine antigens over time. To measure CD8 cell proliferative responses to vaccine antigens over time.

Therapy guidelines recommend the use of either the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) efavirenz or a ritonavir-boostered protease inhibitor (PI) plus 2 nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI) as first-line treatment regimes of HIV-1 infection. Recent clinical studies suggest potential advantages of NNRTI- over PI-based regimes in therapy initiation due to lower rates of virologic failure and less metabolic side-effects. In contrast, PI regimes were claimed to cause greater increases in CD4 cell count than NNRTI regimes, which has been attributed to intrinsic antiapoptotic effects of the PI. However, it is still unclear whether the immunological response to a PI-containing regime is greater than to an NNRTI-containing regime, whether there is a difference in the extent of reduction of apoptosis between PI and NNRTI regimes and whether a difference in apoptosis is associated with a difference in CD4 cell recovery. We conducted a controlled, long-term, random matched pair design study in HIV-1 infected individuals under sustained virologic suppression to evaluate in head-to-head comparison the clinical effects of a constant PI-based or NNRTI-based regime on CD4 cell recovery and the underlying molecular, biochemical and functional mechanisms.

Drug abuse and HIV/AIDS are serious global health problems. Injection drug use is currently the major mode of transmission of HIV in many countries. The purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of drug and risk reduction counseling combined with either substitution drug treatment with buprenorphine/naloxone (BUP/NX) or short-term detoxification with BUP/NX in preventing HIV transmission among injection drug users. Participants will be recruited for this study in China and Thailand.

The introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has dramatically changed the consequences of an HIV infection, which is now viewed as a chronic disease. As in other chronic diseases, emotional distress and depressive symptoms are highly prevalent in HIV-infected patients. Psychological factors such as these have been associated with lower quality of life, lower adherence to therapy and also with a higher risk for mortality and disease progression. Psychosocial interventions, such as group-based cognitive behavioral stress management (CBSM) training, have been shown to reduce distress and psychological symptoms in HIV-infected patients. These psychosocial effects are paralleled by changes in physiological parameters, such as cortisol, DHEA-S, testosterones, catecholamines, and naïve T-cell counts. While these results are congruent with recent evidence of the interaction between psychological, neuroendocrine and immunological parameters in HIV-infected patients, it needs to be shown whether the reported effects hold true in the HAART era. Most importantly, it also needs to be ascertained whether these interventions have an impact on immunological and virological HIV parameters as well as on mortality and morbidity in HIV patients. We propose a randomized controlled one-year prospective evaluation of a group-based CBSM training in 80 HIV-infected patients. Participating patients will be recruited at cooperating centers of the Swiss HIV Cohort Study and randomly assigned to CBSM training or waiting control group condition. At baseline, post-training and two follow-up (6 and 12 months) assessments, effects of the CBSM on psychological, physiological and clinical out-come variables in HIV-infected patients under HAART will be evaluated. Additionally, the effects of CBSM on the neuroendocrine and autonomic stress reactivity in HIV-infected patients will be assessed, thus evaluating a possible direct pathway between emotional distress and physiological HIV-relevant parameters. In conclusion, the planned research project evaluates the effectiveness of a standardized psychosocial intervention as a possible component of a comprehensive disease management in HIV-infected patients under HAART.

The purpose of this trial is to compare the effectiveness, safety and tolerability of TMC278 given at a dose of 25 mg once daily versus efavirenz (EFV) at a dose of 600 mg once daily, when combined with a fixed background regimen consisting of emtricitabine (FTC) + tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), in HIV-1 infected patients who have not yet taken any anti-HIV drugs. The following evaluations will be done: antiviral activity, immunologic changes, and viral geno-/phenotype evolution, relationship of Pharmacokinetics (PK) and PK/Pharmacodynamics, medical resource utilization and treatment adherence.

Vicriviroc (vye-kri-VYE-rock) is an investigational drug (not yet approved by Government Regulatory Authorities for commercial use) that belongs to a new class of drugs, called CCR5 receptor blockers. This group of drugs blocks one of the ways HIV enters T-cells (the cells that fight infection). Previous smaller studies in HIV treatment-experienced patients, have shown that vicriviroc is safe and effective. The purpose of this study is to confirm the previous findings in a larger phase 3 study over a 48-week period, and show that when taken in combination with other appropriate HIV drugs, vicriviroc can decrease the level of HIV (viral load) in the blood and that it is well tolerated.

This study will compare the ability of fosamprenavir 700 mg with ritonavir 100 mg twice a day or lopinavir 400 mg with ritonavir 100 mg twice a day both combined with a fixed dose combination tablet of abacavir 600 mg and lamivudine 300 mg once a day to suppress virus levels of HIV to less than 400 copies/mL of blood. In addition we will study the safety and tolerability of these compounds over the 48 week study period in patients naive to anti-HIV therapy.

The purpose of the study is to compare the efficacy, safety and tolerability of darunavir/ritonavir 800/100 mg once a day (O.D.) as a monotherapy versus a triple combination therapy containing 2 nucleosides and darunavir/ritonavir in 250 HIV-1 infected patients who have been on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) and have plasma viral load below 50 copies/ml for at least 24 weeks.

The purpose of this study is to determine any adverse effects of PRO 542 after administration and to determine the anti-HIV effects of PRO 542 in the patient.