TEMPORAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN-IMMUNODEFICIENCY-VIRUS TYPE-1 RNALEVELS IN SERUM AND CELLULAR INFECTIOUS LOAD IN PERIPHERAL-BLOOD

Cross-sectional analysis of 252 paired serum and peripheral blood mono nuclear cell (PBMC) samples derived from 54 human immunodeficiency vir us type 1 (HIV-l)-infected persons revealed a correlation between HIV- 1 RNA load in serum and infectious load in peripheral CD4 T cells afte r 18 months of follow-up and before an AIDS diagnosis (Pearson's corre lation coefficient [r(p)] = .71, P < .001) and during antiviral treatm ent (r(p) = .78, P < .001), To gain insight into the temporal relation ship between both measures of virus load, longitudinally obtained samp les from 23 persons with various clinical courses (slow or rapid disea se progression, long-term survival) and 22 persons undergoing antivira l therapy (zidovudine or didanosine, or both, or ritonavir) were analy zed, In general, the kinetics of changes in both measures of virus loa d were similar in the natural course of infection (78% of study partic ipants) and during treatment (82% of participants), These findings sug gest that PBMC and serum represent closely related, if not the same, v iral compartments.