Glossary

steatosis – fatty liver. Build up of fat in the liver. Steatosis worsens liver damage and makes hepatitis C harder to treat.

quantitative (in a study) – where what is being measured has a numerical value or fits a pre-defined scale or range of responses.

elite controller (EC) – if your viral load stays undetectable for more than five years without ART you are an elite controller.

Elite controllers also have a very good CD4 count (always above 500 cells/mm³) that stays at a similar level over many years.

Even with this good immune response, ART is still generally recommended in the long-term.

This is because over decades – some ECs have been undetectable for more than 20 years – there is a concern that low level HIV in different body compartments like the brain, might lead to accumulative serious damage that isn’t easy to detect until it is too late.

This is a real concern, though evidence is limited because of the rarity of ECs.

See: long-term slow progressor (LTSP)/long-term non-progessor (LTNP).

peripheral neuropathy (PN) – damage to the nerves in your hands or feet. PN can be caused by HIV or some HIV drugs.

Peripheral neuropathy – more infomation.

genotype test – a test that looks at how the genetic structure of a sample of HIV and whether the virus has changed with drug resistant mutations.