Jan 21, 2005  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS     

People living with HIV/AIDS continue to lead longer lives since the onset of combination drug treatments. But the illness remains life-threatening, despite the popular perception that it has transformed into a largely controllable disease.

“Amidst all of this very good news about people living longer, that it is still a life-threatening disease gets lost,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of AIDS Survival Project in Atlanta. “People do still need to be very worried about contracting HIV to begin with.”

Since 1993, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has been conducting a study examining the length of time it takes for a person to go from being diagnosed with HIV to progressing to full-blown AIDS, and how long someone can expect to live after being diagnosed with AIDS.

Prior to the arrival of highly active antiretroviral therapies — which are commonly referred to as “drug cocktails” — in the mid-1990s, individuals infected with HIV would live for an average of nine years before contracting AIDS, according to the yet-to-be-published CDC study.

During that same time, the average person lived for only 18 months after being diagnosed with full-blown AIDS, according to the study.

But the average length of time between an HIV diagnosis and contracting AIDS increased to 11 years by 2000, the most recent year for which data from the study is available.

Individuals living with AIDS can expect to live for an average of more than six years if they adhere to their drug treatment, according to the 2000 data.

But those life expectancy numbers may have increased since the data was released five years ago, said Karlie Stanton, a spokesperson for the CDC.

The study, known as the HIV Outpatient Study (HOPS), follows HIV-infected patients at 10 clinics in eight cities across the U.S. It remains incomplete since a portion of the individuals it is tracking are still living, Stanton said.

The study does not track disparities in life expectancy based on ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, but CDC data released in December revealed that survival rates after AIDS diagnoses were greatest among men who have sex with men.

Additionally, the CDC’s 2003 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report showed that survival rates, particularly beyond four years, were lower among African Americans than they were for whites, Asians and Latinos.

‘Hit it hard, hit it early’
The latest CDC numbers on life expectancy are “right in line with what we see around here all the time,” said Graham of AIDS Survival Project.

But Pat Hawkins, associate executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C., said she was surprised that the numbers revealed such a slight increase in both the life expectancy of those living with AIDS, and the amount of time it takes to progress from HIV to AIDS.

The numbers are a reminder that people are still dying of AIDS, but the outlook for people living with AIDS has markedly improved since the early days of the epidemic, Hawkins said.

“When we were first starting this in ’83, the mean life expectancy for someone with AIDS was 18 months, but that was a mean number and a lot of people died within weeks and months,” Hawkins said.

“The period of time was much shorter and very unpredictable back then,” Hawkins said. “In the early days, most of our treatment was aimed at making you as comfortable as possible while you declined.”

Paul Feldman, public affairs director for the National Association of People With AIDS, said the life expectancy for people living with AIDS may not have increased more significantly because many people either don’t know their HIV status, or lack access to adequate health care.

“You need to hit it hard, hit it early,” Feldman said of HIV. “People who find out later in the disease are going to have a harder time controlling HIV, in general.”

HIV-fighting drugs and access to adequate healthcare have been the two driving forces behind improved and extended lives for people living with HIV/AIDS, Feldman said.