'Shock and Kill' Strategy For HIV Treatment May Cause Brain Inflammation [STUDY]

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Brain of HIV-infected individuals might be in danger, according to a proposed strategy for HIV treatment. Instead of just restraining the growth of the virus, it may inflict harm on patient's brain as discovered in the experiment.

The experiment utilized the HIV's close cousin, simian immunodeficiency virus. It has been discovered that the "shock-and-kill" strategy could turn prematurely and will create a serious problem if the virus is hiding in the brain, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

"Our study sounds a major cautionary note about the potential for unintended consequences of the shock-and-kill treatment strategy," says Janice Clements, professor of molecular and comparative Pathobiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

HIV infection will eventually lead to AIDS if a patient's immune system is weakened.

The virus has the capacity to hide in a patient's cells and become inactive over long periods of time. So the purpose of completely eradicating the virus and treating a patient has been interfered.

The concept of "shock and kill" is to apply latency-reversing agents to activate the dormant virus causing it to become detected in a patient's immune system. And in combination with antiretroviral drugs, most of the affected cells will be removed from a patient's body.

However, the recent analysis of macaques with SIV, reveals that the strategy might induce a brain inflammation, published in the journal AIDS. 

The capacity of the brain to hold HIV reservoirs might create a threat if the activation of the virus is not given enough attention to the HIV destruction ground, says Janice Clements, Ph.D., professor of molecular and comparative pathobiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

According to the lead author, Lucio Gama and assistant professor from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the research team was worried with the hopeful method of "waking up" dormant virus that might cause trouble if some of HIV resides within the brain.