AIDS Web site offers info from leading researchers

AIDS specialists at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) have launched a new on-line information service on the World Wide Web, called HIV InSite. The peer-reviewed information is written, edited, and maintained by Paul Volberding, MD, director of the nationally prominent UC AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital, and Tom Coates, PhD, director of the UCSF AIDS Research Institute.

The site is aimed at patients, physicians, researchers, policy-makers, service providers, and journalists. Although the database is huge, hospice care for patients with AIDS is not one of its key topics. "It’s important for hospice not to think its involvement with AIDS [patients] is over," in the wake of new treatments such as protease inhibitors and antivirals, Coates says. Current research suggests that protease inhibitors for the most part don’t cross the blood/brain barrier, which may raise the possibility of AIDS-related dementia in patients who otherwise respond to treatment, Coates adds. "We don’t know how it’s all going to play out. The best advice I could give to hospices is don’t go away. You still need to be there when people really need you," he explains.

The Web site’s address is: http://hivinsite. ucsf.edu.