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Clin. Vaccine Immunol. doi:10.1128/CVI.00193-07
Copyright (c) 2007, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Usefulness of alternate prognostic markers in serum/plasma for antiretroviral therapy for HIV-1 infection

Departments of Clinical Virology, Clinical Microbiology, Internal Medicine, Dermatology and Clinical Biochemistry

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: rajeshkannangai{at}hotmail.com.

	Abstract

In developing countries the usability of other peripheral blood constituents which are low cost alternatives to CD4+ T cell and HIV-1 RNA estimation should be evaluated as prognostic markers. The aim of the study was to investigate the use of plasma levels of Dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate (DHEAS), albumin and CRP protein as alternate prognostic marker(s) for antiretroviral treatment (ART) response in place of HIV-1 viral load measurements. Paired blood samples were collected from 30 HIV infected individuals before and after initiation of ART, 13 HIV infected individuals before and after completion of anti tuberculosis therapy (ATT), 10 HIV infected individuals not on either ATT or ART. Because of the non-availability of the samples the CRP estimation was done only in samples from 19, 9 and 8 individuals in group 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The measurements of all three markers, i.e. DHEAS, albumin and CRP were carried out by commercial assays. The differences in the albumin level before and after treatment with ART or ATT was significant (p < 0.05) while the differences in DHEAS and CRP levels were not significant (p > 0.05). While analyzing levels of DHEAS among the followed up individuals 13 (44.8%) in the ART group and 9 (69%) in the ATT group showed an increase following treatment. Prior to the treatment in HIV infected individuals there was a significant positive correlation of CD4+ T cell counts and negative correlation of viral load with albumin and DHEAS (p < 0.01). Among the three plasma markers we tested, plasma albumin and to some extent DHEAS show promise as prognostic markers in monitoring of HIV infection.