Is It Time to Start Treating Acute HIV Infection?

Clinical trials have yielded little evidence to support initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) during acute HIV infection, mostly because of the challenge of enrolling sufficient numbers of acutely infected patients in such studies. At the 6th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, we heard the final results of a relatively large study on short-course treatment during acute infection — the SPARTAC trial [Fidler S et al. Abstract WELBX06].

In this study, researchers randomized 371 patients with acute or very early HIV infection to receive a 48-week course of ART, a 12-week course of ART, or no therapy. Those completing short-term ART were managed off-therapy according to standard of care at the time, which generally…