Perspectives on Viral Load (HIV RNA) and When to Initiate Therapy

We are entering into a new era for treatment of HIV because of the development of the new class of drugs called protease inhibitors and secondly because of the development of the new technology called viral load testing. On June 3, the FDA granted approval to Roche Diagnostics for their viral load test, AMPLICOR HIV-1 MONITOR test, more commonly known as RT-PCR, viral load or HIV RNA PCR. It is the first test approved by the FDA. Chiron Diagnostic's bDNA test has been submitted to the FDA for consideration. Very recently, two important articles were published about viral load; key information from these articles are addressed here.