July 27, 2012 | Health Matters

Cancer drug may help fight AIDS

On Wednesday, US Scientists revealed they had successfully flushed out the AIDS virus lurking dormant in trial patients' white blood cells using a drug designed to combat cancer.

"It is the beginning of work toward a cure for AIDS," David Margolis, co-author of the study published in the journal Nature, said.

Currently, individuals with HIV are required to take antiretroviral drugs, which stops HIV from multiplying. However, the drugs are required for life as they do not kill the virus hidden away in reservoirs.

In the trial, the chemotherapy drug vorinostat actually helped revive and expose these latent HIV cells.

"After a single dose of the drug, at least for a moment in time, (vorinostat) is flushing the virus out of hiding," Margolis said of the trial results. "This is proof of the concept, of the idea that the virus can be specifically targeted in a patient by a drug, and essentially opens up the way for this class of drugs to be studied for use in this way."

The researchers stressed that this is not a cure. Vorinostat, Margolis said, may have some toxic effects, making the treatment worse than the illness. 

Also, there is not enough evidence to confirm if 100 percent of the virus can be captured and killed this way. "If it is only 99 percent true and one percent of the virus escapes, [this treatment] won't succeed," he added. "That is why we have to be careful about our work and what we claim about it."

Cancer drug flushes out lurking AIDS virus: study [AFP]