Treatment
There is no known cure. In some cases, the disease slows or stops if the patient's immune system improves; some AIDS patients with PML have been able to survive for several years, with the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).
AIDS patients who start HAART after being diagnosed with PML tend to have a slightly longer survival time than patients who were already on HAART and then develop PML. A rare complication of effective HAART is immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS), in which increased immune system activity actually increases the damage caused by the infection; although IRIS is often manageable with other types of drugs, it is extremely dangerous if it occurs in PML.
Other antiviral agents that have been studied as possible treatments for PML include cidofovir and interleukin-2, but this research is still preliminary.
Cytarabine (also known as ARA-C), a chemotherapy drug used to treat certain cancers, has been prescribed on an experimental basis for a small number of non-AIDS PML patients. It is reported to have stabilized the neurological condition of a minority of these patients. One patient regained some cognitive function lost as a result of PML.
In June 2010, the first case report appeared of a PML patient being successfully treated with mefloquine. Mefloquine is an antimalarial drug that can also act against the JC virus. Administration of mefloquine seemed to eliminate the virus from the patient's body and prevented further neurological deterioration.
Read more about this topic: Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“I am glad you agree with me as to the treatment of the mining riots. We shall crush out the lawbreakers if the courts and juries do not fail.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,—the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man’s treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)