CD4 Measurements in Patients with HIV Are They Feasible for Poor Settings 英文参考文献.docVIP

Open access, freely available online Perspectives CD4 Measurements in Patients with HIV: Are They Feasible for Poor Settings? Zvi Bentwich M easurement of peripheral blood CD4 T lymphocytes is probably the most important global campaigns to ?ght AIDS, perform the test at a much lower price. Though all these assays are indeed cheaper than regular ?ow cytometry, they suffer from decreased accuracy and, most importantly, they are all of low throughput. such as those of the World Health Organization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. These campaigns aim to distribute ART to millions of people with HIV, mostly living in developing countries. Regretfully, it is highly likely that these major efforts will fail, unless improved and widely used means for counting CD4 cells become available and can be applied where they are most needed. Since at least 35 million people are infected with HIV, and several million of them are in need of urgent lifesaving ART, the issue of CD4 monitoring has become a crucial one. laboratory assay for evaluation and monitoring of patients with HIV. The CD4 count is critical for determining the clinical stage of HIV infection, for deciding when to start antiretroviral therapy (ART), for evaluating the ef?cacy of treatment, and for changing the medications when necessary. Most HIV treatment decisions are therefore based upon the CD4 count [1–3]. A New Method for Counting CD4 Rodriguez et al. describe a novel method for counting CD4 in resource-poor settings (Figure 1) [4]. The method is based on a novel microchip detection system for measuring various analytes in very small volumes. A series of chemical and immunological reactions carried out on microspheres are visualized and captured on a charge-coupled device (developed for digital camera technology). This method allows for accurate measurement of CD4, CD8, and CD4/CD8. The prototype used for demonstration of the new apparatus shows extremely good agreement with c