Human Immunodeficiency Virus BDNA Assay for Pediatric Cases.

M.M.AVILA, D. LIBERATORE, L.MARTÍNEZ PERALTA, M.BIGLIONE, O.LIBONATTI, P.COLL CÁRDENAS, V.L.HODARA.

REVISTA ARGENTINA DE MICROBIOLOGíA

Asociación Argentina de Microbiología.

Lugar: Buenos Aires, Argentina.; Año: 2000 vol. 32 p. 33 - 38

0325-7541

Techniques to quantify plasma HIV-1 RNA viral load (VL) are commercially available, and they are worth in monitoring adults infected by HIV and treated with antiretroviral drugs. Little experience on HIV VL has been achieved in pediatric cases. In Argentina, the evaluation of several assays for VL in pediatrics are now  being considered.  To evaluate the pediatric protocol for bDNA assay in HIV-infected children, 25 samples from HIV-infected children (according to CDC criteria for pediatric AIDS) were analized by using Quantiplex HIV RNA 2.0 Assay (Chiron Corporation) following the manufacturer's recommendations in a protocol that uses  50 ml of patient's plasma (sensitivity: 10,000 copies/ml). When HIV-RNA was not detected samples were run with the 1 ml standard bDNA protocol (sensitivity: 500 HIV-RNA c/ml). Nine samples belonged to infants under 12 months of age (group a) and 16 were over12 months (group b). All infants under the year of age had high HIV-RNA copies in plasma. VL ranged from 30,800 to 2,560,000 RNA copies/ml (median = 362,000 c/ml) for group “a” and <10,000 to 554,600 c/ml (median=<10,000) for group “b”. Only 25% of children in group “b”  had detectable HIV-RNA. By using the standard test of quantification, none of the  patients had non detectable HIV-RNA  rangeing  between 950 and 226,200 c/ml for group “b” (median= 23,300 RNA c/ml). The suggested pediatric protocol could be useful in children under 12 months of age but, 1ml standard protocol must be used for older children. Samples with undetectable results from children under one year of age should be repeated by the standard protocol. Key Words: Viral load, pediatric protocols, HIV/AIDS, RNA quantitation