HIV DAMAGE MAY BE REPAIRED, STUDY SHOWS.

Byline: Huntly Collins Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

For the first time, scientists have demonstrated that it may be possible to restore the frayed immune systems of people who are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, which causes AIDS.

In an important new study, scientists at the National Institutes of Health have found that a human protein known as interleukin-2 can prompt large and sustained increases in the infection-fighting white blood cells that are destroyed by HIV.

Without these cells, people with HIV are prey to secondary infections such as pneumonia, which eventually kill them.

The findings, reported in today's New England Journal of Medicine, are based on a yearlong study of 60 HIV patients, half of whom were given intravenous infusions of interleukin-2 (IL-2) along with standard anti-HIV drugs.

At the end of the treatment, the patients' CD4 cells, the white blood cells targeted by HIV, had more than doubled. It was the largest increase ever achieved by any HIV-related therapy, including the powerful new class of drugs known as protease inhibitors.

``This work highlights the potential role of immune-based therapies in the treatment of HIV-infected people,'' said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which conducted the study.

Scientists stressed, however, that further studies are needed before IL-2 can advance from small trials to widespread use.

Many AIDS researchers believe that effective HIV treatment may ultimately require a two-pronged approach: attacking the virus with protease inhibitors and other anti-HIV drugs, while boosting the immune system with IL-2 or other natural proteins like it.

In effect, the strategy would be aimed at suppressing HIV, the cause of the problem, and repairing the damage HIV has done to the body's immune system.

The protease inhibitors, which are used in combination with older anti-HIV medicines, hit the market earlier this year. No immune-based therapy has yet been approved for the treatment of HIV infection. Interleukin-2, which is produced by immune-system cells, is already used to treat renal cell cancer.

Donna E. Shalala, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, called the new findings ``very encouraging.'' She said they held out the ``tantalizing possibility'' of restoring the immune systems of people with HIV and helping others with immune disorders and cancer.

All 60 patients studied by government scientists were in the midstages of HIV infection. None had yet developed AIDS-related illnesses.

Half the group was given standard anti-HIV medicines, while the other half got those drugs plus intravenous infusions of IL-2.To get the infusions, patients had to be hospitalized for five days once every other month. They were attached to IV lines and the medicine was dripped directly into their bloodstream for nearly 24 hours a day.