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)
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