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Arguably, the biggest news in HIV medicine this year was the HPTN 052 study, which definitively demonstrated that effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) greatly diminishes the risk for HIV transmission (JW AIDS Clin Care Jul 19 2011). In this study, researchers randomized 1763 HIV-infected individuals — all of whom had CD4 counts between 350 and 550 cells/mm3 and were in stable serodiscordant relationships — to either start ART immediately or defer ART until their CD4 counts declined to between 200 and 250 cells/mm3.
Ninety percent of patients in the immediate-ART group achieved viral loads <400 copies/mL within the first year of follow-up. Overall, only one patient on ART transmitted HIV to his partner, compared with 27 transmissions from p…