Purpose of Antiretroviral Treatments

• The goal of treatment with antiretroviral medications is to slow or halt the development of a disease process. There is no cure for HIV, so treatment centers on improving the patient's quality of life by reducing overt symptoms of HIV and slowing its progression in the body.
  
  

Classes of Antiretroviral Medications

• All antiretroviral medications aim to slow the progress of a retrovirus, but do so via several different mechanisms. Avert.org, a non-profit AIDS information agency, lists five main classes of antiretroviral medications: nucleoside or nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors, fusion/ entry inhibitors and integrase inhibitors. The first three classes of drugs interfere with the virus's ability to reproduce, while the latter two work to prevent the virus from being able to enter into host cells in the body.
  
  

HAART (Highly Active AntiRetroviral Treatment)

• HAART (Highly Active AntiRetroviral Treatment) refers to a specific treatment regimen for HIV/AIDS that involves taking several different antiretroviral drugs in combination in order to reduce the chance that a patient will develop drug resistance, and to increase the effectiveness of each individual medication. In HAART, patients take two or three drugs from the different classes of antiretrovirals.
  
  

Side Effects

• Although antiretroviral treatments are quite effective in treating HIV and AIDS, they do have a high side-effect profile. Some of the effects of these drugs will decrease over time, while others may require patients to take additional medications or other steps. The Mayo Clinic lists common side effects of various antiretroviral treatments as: nausea, diarrhea or headaches, vomiting, fatigue and exacerbation of mood disorders. More serious side effects of some of the antiretroviral drugs include bone marrow suppression (for a few types of medication), liver damage, and hypersensitivity.