PRELIMINARY COMMUNICATION Predictive Value of Plasma HIV RNA Level on Rate of CD4 T-Cell Decline in Untreated HIV Infection

DEPLETION OF CD4 CELLS IS Ahallmark of progressive hu-man immunodeficiency vi-rus (HIV) disease1 and a powerful predictor of the short-term risk of progression to AIDS.2 Un-treated HIV infection leads to AIDS in approximately half of untreated pa-tients within 10 years,3 but the rate at which AIDS occurs in each individual varies greatly. Both CD4 cell count and plasma HIV RNA level discriminate in-dependently between rapid and slow progressors4; thus, the 9-year probabil-ity of AIDS ranges from 3.6 % among pa-tients with low plasma HIV RNA lev-els and high CD4 cell counts to 100% among patients at the opposite end of For editorial comment see p 1523