The.Bird@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org (The "Bird") (09/25/90)
Patient #2: This 38-year-old man with late-stage HIV infection and severe immune suppression was diagnosed with oropharyngeal and pulmonary KS in May 1990. After one course of combination chemotherapy, the patient declined further chemotherapy and sought hyperthermia treatment for his viceral KS and HIV infection. Hyperthermia was performed June 14, 1990. Patient #2 experienced no objective short-term or long-term clinical reponse to this treatment: both physical and radiologic results demonstrated continued disease progression after hyperthermia. Data presented do not allow conclusions about either the immunologic or virologic effects of hyperthermia. The patient remains HIV positive and severely immunosuppressed. CONCLUSIONS Hyperthermia, as applied to these two cases, appears to have offered no clinical, immunologic or virologic benefits to these two patients. After hyperthermia, patients #1 and #2 both remain HIV antibody positive and have mild and severe immune suppresion, respectively. Hyperthermia did not changebaseline HIV p24 antigen status; patient #1 was and remains negative, and patient #2 was and remains positive. The team cannot attribute the clinical improvement of patient #1 directly to hyperthermia and suspects his very rapid response was secondary to administration of broad-spectrum antibiotics during the hyperthermia procedure, which inadvertently treated an infectious condition. One of several possibilities is BEA, which has been recently reported (see AM J MED, February 1990 and August 1990) as a skin disease increasingly associated with HIV infection. The team was unable to find evidence of KS in biopsy specimens taken before hyperthermia was performed. (continued) -- Uucp: ...{gatech,ames,rutgers}!ncar!asuvax!stjhmc!135!38!The."Bird" Internet: The."Bird"@f38.n135.z1.fidonet.org