What does treatment failure mean?

Simply put, treatment failure means that the antiretroviral (ARV) HIV drugs you are taking are no longer doing what they should. In the past, the only way to determine whether or not an HIV drug—or combination of drugs—was working was to measure CD4 cell counts and to look for signs and symptoms of disease progression. But these are all indirect consequences of HIV infection. The best way to see if ARV drugs are working is to directly measure the amount of virus in the blood using viral load tests.

If your viral load does not decrease significantly while on HIV combination therapy—or stay down while taking the drugs—you are at risk of seeing yourCD4 cell count decrease once again and, quite possibly, experience symptoms of disease progression.

You and your provider can monitor your viral load and CD4 cell count using routine blood tests. Used together, these tests can help you determine how healthy your immune system is and when you should switch therapy. For more information about understanding these test results, click on the following lesson links:

Understanding Your CD4 Cell Test Understanding Your Viral Load Test

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