Cocktail Drugs
The HIV-inhibiting drug cocktails, most often comprised of an HIV protease inhibitor plus two anti-retrovirals, have been shown to produce a marked decline in viral load, with resulting increase in CD4 cells and alleviation of numerous symptoms of HIV infection, such as wasting syndrome, swollen lymph nodes, and several opportunistic infections.
Gadde was one of two scientists who presented findings yesterday of pharmaceutical company-sponsored trials that tested cocktails of drugs that caused incidental weight loss in patients taking them for other reasons.
A three-drug cocktail used by many HIV-infected people proved clearly superior to other combinations at treating new patients in the biggest head-to-head comparison of AIDS medications.
The best known use of drug cocktails has been in the fight against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Drug cocktails also have been used to combat several types of cancer. Often, drugs that might not be effective in combating diseases individually do much better in combination.Drug combinations can also be used effectively to inhibit infectious diseases because resistance to a single drug is very common, according to Ren Sun, UCLA professor of molecular and medical pharmacology and a member of the research team.
Many psychiatrists and parents believe that such drug combinations, often referred to as drug cocktails, help. But there is virtually no scientific evidence to justify this multiplication of pills, researchers say. A few studies have shown that a combination of two drugs can be helpful in adult patients, but the evidence in children is scant. And there is no evidence at all - “zero,” “zip,” “nil,” experts said - that combining three or more drugs is appropriate or even effective in children or adults.
The best known use of drug cocktails has been in the fight against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Drug cocktails also have been used to combat several types of cancer. Often, drugs that might not be effective in combating diseases individually do much better in combination.
If one drug isn’t enough to control these tumors, then maybe creating a cocktail of several drugs, and adding them to chemotherapy, will be. In some ways, it’s a fallback strategy, says Dr. Leonard Saltz, a colon cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. “Nobody set out to develop [these drugs] as an additive to chemotherapy,” he says. “They were supposed to replace chemo, and make us look back and say, ?Can you believe that we had a barbaric age when we were treating patients with something that made them lose their hair and vomit their guts out?’ But they didn’t work, and if you can’t beat them, join them.”
The drug cocktails are not free of side effects, but it appears that the vast majority of individuals who try them are able to tolerate the drugs. These drugs, now prescribed to patients before they attain a diagnosis of AIDS, have been responsible for reducing the rate of new AIDS cases in the U.S. by about half since they were introduced. That effect might have been larger had more people been diagnosed and treated with the drugs in time.
