Dr. Peter A. Sklar

Peter Sklar - Infectious Disease, GWU, HIV Research Fellow at NIH 1999

Peter Sklar '99 - George Washington University, DC

Lead author Dr. Peter Sklar said that given the toxicities of certain medications, "caution should be warranted before switching and changing in response to an episode of transient viremia because I believe our data shows that they may not have clinical importance."Sklar is now a research fellow in the Clinical Center of the Critical Care Medicine Department at the National Institutes of Health.The study was completed when he was a fellow in infectious diseases at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC.HIV medications seek to reduce the level of virus circulating in the blood to undetectable levels within several weeks of the beginning of treatment.Sklar said that patients' failure to adhere to their medications might be behind the blips, and added that he hopes this study will "stimulate a discussion" between physicians and their patients about patients' adherence to their therapy.The study, in a recent issue of the journal AIDS was part of the HIV Outpatient Study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( news - web sites), and included 448 patients on various types of antiviral therapy.Sklar told Reuters Health that patients with persistent high levels of the virus were more likely to have been exposed to a variety of anti-viral treatments, and may thus have developed resistance to the drugs.

Dr. Peter A. Sklar, of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and associates included in their analysis 448 patients treated between 1997 and 2000 at nine HIV clinics in the US.
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Dr. Sklar and his colleagues conclude that most patients who exhibit transient viremia will regain their undetectable viral load status without changing drug regimens.