Menu
Recruiting NCT01202305

The Use of Lymph Node Biopsies to Support HIV Pathogenesis Studies

Observational HIV

For patients and families

In plain language

An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.

What is being studied
The protocol lists: Lymph node biopsy.
Who it may be relevant to
Registry conditions: HIV. Basic parameters: 18 years — 70 years · All.
What needs checking
Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
Where it takes place
United States
Next step
Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →

Overview

HIV medicines have led to dramatic improvements in health. However, there remains a concern for potential drug toxicities, cost of drugs, and need for life-long treatment. In addition, research has found that health is not completely restored in HIV-infected patients, even if they have been taking effective HIV medicines for a long time. This may be due to direct drug-toxicity, continued replication of the virus, and/or inflammation of the body in response to the virus. Therefore, a more complete understanding of how HIV stays in the body is necessary. Recent research has shown that one of the places that HIV can stay in the body is in lymphatic tissues such as lymph nodes (even in patients who have been taking HIV medicines for a long time). In addition, the amount of damage to the lymphatic tissues can predict how the immune system (CD4+ T cell count) will respond to therapy. The investigators therefore propose a study in which lymph nodes from the groin area will be removed, with the goals of: 1) seeing how much HIV is in lymph nodes and 2) seeing how much damage has happened to the lymph node architecture.

Interventions

  • Procedure Lymph node biopsy
    Inguinal lymph node biopsy

Primary outcome measures

  • HIV persistence [Time frame: 1 year]

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria

  • Able to give informed consent
  • No contraindication to surgical procedures
  • Palpable inguinal adenopathy at study entry
  • For HIV seropositive subjects, meeting one of the following criteria: (1) on stable highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) with a recent undetectable viral load (< 50 copies/mL) ("HAART suppressed"), (2) antiretroviral untreated with an undetectable viral load (< 50 copies/mL) ("elite" controllers), or (3) antiretroviral untreated with a detectable viral load (> 1000 copies/mL) ("non-controllers")

Exclusion criteria

  • Known anemia (HIV+ males Hct<34; females Hct<32) or contraindication to donating blood
  • Blood coagulation disorder (including bleeding tendency or problems in past with blood clots)
  • Platelets < 50,000/mm3
  • PTT > 2x ULN
  • INR > 1.5
  • Pregnant

Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.

Healthy volunteers: Yes

Study design

Observational model
Case-control

Study locations

United States · 1 center
  • San Francisco General Hospital — San Francisco

Identifiers

NCT: NCT01202305 · 10-03606

Primary sources (government registries)

View this study on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗