With PWAs’ opportunistic infections (OIs) on the rise after a three-year protease-created lull, OI management is inching back into the research spotlight with HIV control. It has long been known that PWAs are at greatest risk for wasting when acutely ill. Now a small study by Singapore researcher Nick Paton, MD, has shown that giving recombinant human growth hormone (Serostim) within 48 hours of beginning OI treatment significantly improves the outcomes. Participants taking Serostim for two weeks maintained their lean body mass during the course of the OI, compared to those on placebo, whose body mass declined.

In another kudo for the growth hormone, Wilbert Jordan, MD, of Los Angeles’ OASIS Clinic has reported that giving the drug to people on dialysis for HIV-associated nephropathy, an uncommon, rarely reversible kidney condition, resulted in two out of four patients improving enough to come off dialysis, with a third patient’s kidneys again producing urine.