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Denver is one of 16 US sites participating in "Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy," the first major, long-term study to investigate what happens when people with HIV/AIDS take a break from their drug regimens. The study, which comes after years of warnings about dire consequences for those who don't stick faithfully to their regimens, represents a response to growing concerns about the drugs' toxic side effects and increasing resistance to them.

Researchers will follow 6,000 people for six to nine years to learn the risks and benefits of taking the drugs intermittently versus constantly. Patient recruitment is underway; to be eligible, a participant must be HIV-positive, age 13 or older, with a T-cell count of 350 or higher. Some participants will stay on drugs throughout the study. Others will go off them when their T-cell count is 350 or above and resume taking them if the count falls below 250. Patients will be assigned to one group or the other.

Researchers cautioned that patients should not interpret the study as a signal that it's OK to take themselves off a drug regimen. "It's not something people should do outside a clinical trial," one researcher noted.

Editor's Note: from the Denver Post