What is antiretroviral therapy?
Listen to pronunciation. (AN-tee-REH-troh-VY-rul THAYR-uh-pee) Treatment with drugs that inhibit the ability of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or other types of retroviruses to multiply in the body.
What is antiretroviral therapy and how does it work?
Antiretroviral drugs HIV is treated with antiretroviral medicines, which work by stopping the virus replicating in the body. This allows the immune system to repair itself and prevent further damage. A combination of HIV drugs is used because HIV can quickly adapt and become resistant.
Why antiretroviral therapy is important?
Effective antiretroviral therapy is the most important intervention in terms of improving longevity and preventing opportunistic infections in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Therapy should involve combinations of drugs recommended by current guidelines.
What are the principles of antiretroviral therapy?
Reduction of viral load (VL) as much as possible for as long as possible.
What are the different types of antiretroviral drugs?
What are the 6 classes of antiretroviral drugs (ARDs) for pediatric HIV infection?
- Nucleoside or nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs)
- Nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs)
- Protease inhibitors (PIs)
- Integrase inhibitors (IIs)
- Fusion inhibitors (FIs)
- Chemokine receptor antagonists (CRAs)
How are antivirals classified?
Antiviral drugs can be classified according to their chemical nature (e.g., small-molecules, peptides, biologics) or mechanisms of drug actions against specific viral proteins (e.g., polymerase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, glycoprotein inhibitors).
What are antiretrovirals and how do they work?
How Antiretrovirals Work. Antiretroviral drugs don’t work by actively killing the virus. Instead, they target and block different stages of the virus’ life cycle. By doing so, the virus is unable to replicate and make copies of itself.
What does highly active antiretroviral therapy mean?
Highly active antiretroviral therapy stops the virus from making copies of itself in the body. This may lessen the damage to the immune system caused by HIV and may slow down the development of AIDS. It may also help prevent transmission of HIV to others, including from mother to child during birth.
What is highly active antiretroviral therapy?
Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has greatly reduced the illness and deaths of HIV‐infected people worldwide. There are many options for first‐line antiretroviral therapy (ART), but second‐line therapy is necessary for people who fail the first‐line treatment.
Can antiretroviral therapy ever be stopped?
Discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) may result in viral rebound, immune decompensation, and clinical progression. 1-5 Thus, planned interruptions of ART are not generally recommended. However, unplanned interruption of ART may occur under certain circumstances as discussed below.