Outside of persons given immune-suppressing drugs, PCP is remarkably rare, so much so that prior to the AIDS epidemic the CDC was dispensing fewer than 100 prescriptions of
pentamidine (at that time the only treatment for the disease) a year.
For example, HIV-infected patients now receive bactrim or
pentamidine for the treatment and prevention of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and ganciclovir and foscarnet to treat cytomegalovirus and herpes infections.[3]
Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole,
pentamidine, and atovaquone (Mepron/566C80) are used to treat or prevent pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, which has been the leading HIV-related cause of death (Hughes et al., 1993).
Treatment protocols (AZT, ddI, gammaglobulin, bactrim, and aerosolized
Pentamidine) have documented success in prolonging the life of children with HIV and adding a substantial number of functional years to the children's life expectancy.|2-6~ These treatments are contributing to the appearance of children with HIV at school, since untreated children sustained high rates of early mortality and often were severely compromised medically, cognitively, and physically prior to death.|7,8~
When the underground found that
pentamidine, which was available in the United States, could be psurchased much more cheaplys in Europe, they imported it.
Speakers at the July 1992 VIII International Conference on AIDS in Amsterdam reported that AIDS outpatients in crowded waiting rooms of clinics and those undergoing aerosolized
pentamidine treatment in special procedure areas were unknowingly spreading MDR TB to other patients and workers.|2~
Either the drug slows the spread of the virus, as does AZT, or it combats one of the opportunistic infections that accompany AIDS, like aerosolized
pentamidine for pneumocystis pneumonia.
Retrovir (AZT) and aerosol
pentamidine, the two most widely prescribed medications, cost about $8,000 and $1,200 respectively for a year's supply.
Examples: aerosol
pentamidine to treat pneumocystis pneumonia;
None, Nor did [CDC technician] Sandra Ford's records turn up any
pentamidine orders for hemophiliac patients.
Out of nineteen, analogs 2 (IC50 = 46.95 +- 1.23 uM), 4 (IC50 = 63.03 +- 0.20 uM), 5 (IC50 = 41.35 +- 0.51 uM), 6 (IC50 = 35.62 +- 0.15 uM), 7 (IC50 = 75.35 +- 0.35 uM), 10 (IC50 = 82.36 +- 1.93 uM), 11 (IC50 = 76.45 +- 0.13 uM), 16 (IC50 = 59.21 +- 1.00 uM), 18 (IC50 = 75.73 +- 1.54 uM), and 19 (IC50 = 76.43 +- 0.04 uM) exhibited moderate to weak anti-leishmanial potential, if compared with the standard
pentamidine (IC50 = 5.09 +- 0.04 uM), whilst rest of the analogs were found to be inactive.