
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 12, 1990                   TAG: 9005120179
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

OFFICIALS PROMOTE USE OF NEW AIDS TREATMENT

Federal health officials Friday recommended that physicians use a recently approved drug as standard treatment for recurrences of a life-threatening infection in AIDS patients.

The drug fluconazole proved so successful that a government-sponsored comparative study was stopped and the drug was offered to all participants, said officials at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In the study, fluconazole was compared with amphotericin B, which has been the standard treatment for the infection as well as for recurrences.

The infection, cryptococcal meningitis, affects the brain and nervous system. About 10 percent of people with AIDS get the disease.

- Associated Press

by CNB