Treatment Options for HIV

Treatments for HIV have come a long way in improving the quality and length of life since medications for the disease were first developed in 1989. Options for treatment depend on how advanced your disease is and whether you have a resistant strain of HIV, and they usually include combining three or more drugs to increase effectiveness.

NRTIs

• Nucleoside analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors, such as Retrovir, are medications prescribed by your doctor to prevent HIV from reproducing itself.

PIs

• Protease inhibitors, such as Viracept, are drugs that cause a malfunction of the reproduction of HIV so the virus cannot infect your immune system's T cells.

NNRTIs

• Non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, such as Sustiva, are prescribed by your physician along with other treatments and work by blocking enzymes used by HIV to reproduce itself.

NtRTI

• Viread is the only drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration that is a nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor and is used to treat both hepatitis B and HIV.

Isentress

• Isentress is the only FDA-approved integrase inhibitor for treating HIV and works by preventing the virus from inserting its genetic material into your cells.

Fuzeon

• Fuzeon is the only FDA-approved fusion inhibitor and is used to treat HIV if you do not respond to other types of treatments.

Selzentry

• Selzentry is unique in that it is the only drug that targets human cells rather than HIV and is used when other drugs are ineffective or if you have advanced HIV.