wild-type virus – HIV that has no drug resistance mutations.
This is usually the virus that you were first infected with. However, approximately 10% of people who are diagnosed with HIV in the UK are likely to already have resistance to one or more HIV drugs.
This is called transmitted drug resistance. This is also why everyone diagnosed with HIV should also have a resistance tests.
Rates of transmitted drug resistance vary in different countries.
AST (aspartate aminotransferase; also called serum glutamicoxaloacetic transaminase; SGOT) – an enzyme that is made in many places throughout the body (heart, intestines, muscle) , which is monitored (as with ALT) routinely in HIV-positive people on ARVs to detect liver toxicity from HIV drugs (or other medications). Elevated AST that is specifically made in the liver signals liver injury, but does not indicate how serious liver damage is.
phenotype test – a type of drug resistance that tests whether a drug is sensitive or resistance to a sample of HIV.
seroreversion – the word for when the baby born to an HIV-positive mother, no longer has the mother’s antibodies to HIV.
matched – in clinical trials matched refers to each group having similar age, gender, ethnicity, HIV duration, health etc in a study.