Kathy Wood

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  ADVANCE for Providers of Post-Acute Care| Past Onlince... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 8/27/2002    Last Visited: 8/27/2002  

  "The drug has attained favorable results during testing, but also has greater acceptance in part because of the ease of administration," said Kathy Wood, BSN, CDC Project Director at Cerner Corporation.
  
  But new drugs to add to the formulary are slow in coming today."The amount of money it takes to produce new drugs is incredible, and pharmaceutical companies are slowing down," Wood said.Research still continues, but at a slower pace than in the past.Even after years of work, there is still not a vaccine available yet to guard against HIV infection, despite ongoing research.
  
  DRUG-RESISTANCE
  
  While caregivers have learned the cocktail can slow down the progression of the disease, they are also seeing forward motion in the battle slowing considerably.
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  "Resistance depends initially on who infected you," Wood said.
  
  This is not always as ominous as it might appear though.The reverse is also true.If the virus was transmitted by a person with a very low resistance and not a large number of mutational viruses were present, then there is a better chance the new host will also have the same level of resistance.
  
  Much depends of the original host."The more non-compliant that patient is, the more likely resistance to drugs will occur," Wood said."If you keep the virus from replicating, then you decrease the likelihood for mutations," Wood said.
  
  HIV DOCS
  
  Besides knowing what kind of resistance an HIV patient has, Wood advises HIV-positive patients to find a specialized physician who is familiar with the virus."Studies have shown that patients do better when treated by physicians who have a large population of HIV/AIDS patients," Wood said."It's like any other disease entity.When you need a specialist, go to a specialist and you get better care."If the physician is savvy about HIV treatment, then that doctor already knows about drug-resistance patterns and knows all about genotyping and phenotyping tests.
  
  "Today, the genotyping and phenotyping that is done produces a report that allows physicians to see what drug-resistance patterns are present.Based on those patterns, they should be able to pick the best drugs to treat the patient," Wood said.
  
  Selecting drugs based on up-to-date reports can stop the physician from prescribing drugs that ultimately will not help the patient.
  
  FINANCING HIV DRUGS
  
  The AIDS cocktail hour is far from being any sort of happy hour.The financial burden for treating AIDS/HIV is exceedingly high and can easily outpace an individual's yearly income.
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  "Annual costs are anywhere from $20,000 and $30,000 for an average patient depending on how many of the drugs are included in their cocktail," Wood said.
  
  The costs generally climb over the years as well as new drugs get added to the mix.How long the patient has been infected and what kind of resistance they have developed over the years will impact the recipe."The more resistant the patient is, the larger the combination they have to take to treat the illness," Wood said.

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