Abstract
Background. Subjects on suppressive combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) who do not achieve robust reconstitution of CD4+ T cells face higher risk of complications and death. We studied participants in the Women's Interagency HIV Study with good (immunological responder [IR]) or poor (immunological nonresponder [INR]) CD4+ T-cell recovery after suppressive cART (n = 50 per group) to determine whether cytokine levels or low-level viral load correlated with INR status.Methods. A baseline sample prior to viral control and 2 subsequent samples 1 and 2 years after viral control were tested. Serum levels of 30 cytokines were measured at each time point, and low-level human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral load and anti-HIV antibody levels were measured 2 years after viral suppression.Results. There were minimal differences in cytokine levels between IR and INR subjects. At baseline, macrophage inflammatory protein-3β levels were higher in IR subjects; after 1 year of suppressive cART, soluble vascular endothelial growth factor-R3 levels were higher in IR subjects; and after 2 years of suppressive cART, interferon gamma-induced protein 10 levels were higher in INR subjects. Very low-level HIV viral load and anti-HIV antibody levels did not differ between IR and INR subjects.Conclusions. These results imply that targeting residual viral replication might not be the optimum therapeutic approach for INR subjects.
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