SCIENCE FILE: An exploration of issues and trends affecting science, medicine and the environment. : Early AZT Treatment Doesn’t Help Fight Off AIDS, Study Says

A long-term study of more than 1,600 volunteers infected with the AIDS virus supports previous studies suggesting that early treatment with the drug AZT does not help fight off the killer disease. For years, doctors have given AZT to patients immediately after tests showed they had been infected with HIV, which causes AIDS. That strategy grew from a 1990 study that suggested AZT works best when given as soon as possible after infection.

In the new study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Paul Volberding of San Francisco General Hospital and colleagues in the AIDS Clinical Trials Group followed the volunteers for an average of five years and found virtually no difference between the death rate in patients given AZT as soon as possible and in volunteers given the drug only after their white blood cell count--measuring cells known as CD4 cells--dropped below 500. They also found that AZT did not delay the development of AIDS symptoms or eventual death.