Why do I need to take lab tests if I have HIV?

Why do I need to take lab tests if I have HIV?

Charles Farthing (Chief of Medicine, AIDS Healthcare Foundation) gives expert video advice on: Why do I need to take lab tests if I have HIV? and more...

If you have HIV, it's very important to have disease monitoring, to have lab tests every three months or, at the most, every four months. The reason for that is, even if a patient is doing well and the virus is very inactive in their body, and the viral load is very low in the blood, the virus can mutate and change and become more aggressive. You never know when that's going to occur. We need to watch it, because if it does start to act badly, then treatment may need to be started. If someone has HIV and they're on anti-retroviral medication, the reason for the repeat tests every three or four months is to make sure that the medication is still working and doesn't need to be changed, and also to make sure that there's no toxicities from the drugs to the liver or kidneys for example, as time goes on. Those toxicities are rare, but if you don't monitor them then you'll miss them and disadvantage some patients.