Safety and Efficacy of a Progressively Prolonged Maintenance Interval of Venom Immunotherapy.

Background: The long-term protection provided by venom immunotherapy (VIT) is related to the dose administered and to its long duration; the latter, however, becomes inconvenient for patients in countries like Greece, with many islanders or inhabitants of distant mountainous areas. Maintenance interval prolongation reduces the number of office visits - saving time and money - and as a consequence contributes to the patients' compliance. The aim of this prospective study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of VIT on a progressively prolonged maintenance interval (PPMI).

Body composition changes in protease inhibitor-naive HIV-infected patients treated with two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

Objectives: In the era of highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART), there are insufficient data regarding lipodystrophy syndromes in HIV-1-infected patients treated with regimens that do not include protease inhibitors (PIs). We studied changes in body composition in HIV-1-infected patients before and 2 years after starting a non-PI-containing antiretroviral treatment regimen.

Methods: We studied retrospectively the whole body dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scans of 23 PI-naive HIV-1-infected patients (17 males, six females), aged 37.