Clinical use of quantitative molecular methods in studying human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection

INTRODUCTION 135 ROLE OF QUANTITATIVE METHODS 135 Emerging Features of HIV-1 Infection and Consequent Diagnostic Aspects 135 Requirement for Quantitative Methods To Study HIV-1 Infection 136 QUANTITATION OF SPECIFIC VIRAL DNA AND RNA SEQUENCES 137 Attempts To Quantify Nucleic Acid Species in Biological Samples 137 Competitive PCR-Based Methods 137 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF HIV-1 INFECTION 139 Primary Infection with HIV-1 139 Clinical Latency 139 Disease Progression 140 Long-Term Nonprogressor Patients 140 MONITORING THERAPY WITH SPECIFIC ANTI-HIV-1 COMPOUNDS 141 Ideal Parameter To Monitor Efficiency 141 Antiretroviral Therapies and Analysis of HIV-1 Load 141 CONCLUDING REMARKS 143 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 143 REFERENCES 143