MICR140: Tesamorelin Treatment In HIV Patients
West Coast University
Shamara Illona

This journal is an experimentation regard to tesamorelin, which is a synthetic drug that could aid in decreasing visceral adipose tissue (lypohypertrophy) by triggering human growth hormone. The background story of this research is concerning HIV patients that carry out antiretroviral therapy (ART) for long term use depend on one’s lypohypertrophy growth. If the lypohypertrophy increases; it will negatively affect the result of the antiretroviral therapy, self image, and quality of life. Beside this, increase in adipose tissue could lead to type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, especially atherosclerosis. The hypothesis of this research is patients with HIV could lower their lypohypertrophy growth by consuming tesamorelin to obtain maximal antiretroviral therapy in shorter period of time and increase patients’ quality of life by avoid them from any obese related diseases. The method used in the research is by constructing a statistical model that will determine patients response after consuming tesamorelin and undergo ART for the next three to six months. This method used because we could easily measure the factors that play a part in the results and its features. For example, by using statistical model we could analyze the impact of tesamorelin with VAT through three ways; analyze change from baseline up to three months, from baseline up to six months, and from other factors like body mass index (BMI), race, age, gender, waist circumference, waist to hip ratio, cholesterol level, time span of HIV infection and ART, protease inhibitor (PI)-based highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-based HAART. After analyze the impact of tesamorelin, the researchers would identify any change in the subjects characteristics who were successfully decreased their VAT level after consuming tesamorelin. To assess VAT, researchers used computer tomography (CT) and resulted images were analyzed blinded fashion in Central Imaging Reading Center. Next, the statistical analysis started by comparing the result with the previous standard disease-risk scores. The result of the experiment used datas from baseline to six months treatment and it showed that tesamorelin had a greater absolute change when the patients have more or higher triglyceride level in their body (>1.7 mmol/L) and when the subjects are white. The result also showed that the subjects who consumed tesamorelin is 3.9 times higher compare to other subjects that used placebo for their treatment after controlling their gender, BMI, and baseline VAT. On other hand, the datas from baseline to three months treatment showed no absolute change. The result given showed that the overall datas support the hypothesis of this research, even though it needs further experiment as to why the three months treatment did not work and as to how these other factors like race, age, and gender played a part in the treatment. To end, I picked this article because it is related to my oral presentation next week. Even though I could not put this as the treatment since it is not officially declared, it is exciting to learn a new research that is related to my other project. Overall, the article is really clear, informative, and straight forward.

References:
Mangili, A., Mamputu, J., Stepanians, M., & Hayward, B. (2015, October 12). Predictors of Treatment Response to Tesamorelin, a Growth Hormone-Releasing Factor Analog, in HIV-Infected Patients with Excess Abdominal Fat. Retrieved October 15, 2015, from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0140358#sec007