Effect of acyclovir on HHV6/HHV8?

[Jeffrey Johnston]

What would be interesting would be to validate some of the HIV-HHV inter-
action hypotheses by looking for quantitative evidence of HHV in HIV-infected 
persons receiving one of the anti-herpes drug. If, for example, the theory 
that HHV-8 is associated with Kaposi's is true, then is treatment with 
acyclovir (or related drugs) associated with a decreased occurrence of this 
opportunistic infection? 

The problem with such a study, however, is that there are a lot of confound- 
ing factors to be controlled. HIV-infected individuals often take many dif-
ferent drugs, may have other co-infections, and presumably, those taking
acyclovir have outbreaks of herpes simplex-1 or -2, and maybe some other
unknown factor that increases the risk for herpes simplex is associated 
with Kaposi's. So, this would be tough, analytically, but I'm willing to 
bet that stored sera are available from the many treatment trials. Also, 
Burroughs Wellcome (now Glaxo Wellcome) is here in my area. I wonder if 
an answer is in someone's -70 freezer right now.

Michael Ostrander (FYDS16A at prodigy.com) wrote:
: There has been at least one major trial looking at HIV disease 
: progression in patients treated with acyclovir. The results,as I recall, 
: were positive. since acyclovir has no activity against HIV the effect is 
: presumed to be due to effects against herpesviruses and implying some 
: interaction of herpesviruses in AIDS progression. however, I believe that 
: there may be some difficulties in co-administering antiviral nucleosides 
: eg. acyclovir or ganciclovir and AZT.

: Mike