CLN Daily 2024
Early detection of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can help patients seek treatment and also take steps to not spread the virus to others. And while most healthcare providers offer early HIV testing, often with appropriate counseling, they often still need to consult with clinical laboratory professionals as part of the testing and treatment process. Clinicians also may not be up to date on new diagnostic technologies, and new research into what tests to use for different kinds of patients, and when.
“We’ve made progress in the technology, and we’ve made progress with guidelines to diagnose HIV,” said Vincent Ricchiuti, PhD, laboratory director and discipline director in immunology at LabCorp, who will again be holding a roundtable on HIV diagnostics at ADLM 2024 in Chicago on July 30.
Proper test utilization is especially key as HIV has not gone away — far from it, with an estimated 39 million people living with HIV worldwide in 2022, and 630,000 people dying of HIV-related illnesses that year, according to the World Health Organization. Approximately 84,000 of those deaths were in children under the age of 15.
In the U.S., 1.2 million adults have HIV, of which about 13% don’t know it and need testing, according to the CDC. The organization also estimated that 31,200 new infections occurred in the U.S. in 2021. The number of new HIV infections in the U.S. has declined 12% from 2017 to 2021, but too many people are still acquiring the disease and dying from it.
“We still need to be able to make sure we diagnose as early as possible to have effective treatment and awareness for the HIV population” Ricchiuti said. Doing so will benefits patients by getting them earlier, appropriate care – and help the community at large but preventing disease spread.
The roundtable will discuss many topics related to HIV and HIV diagnostic testing, including a review of current CDC algorithm for HIV diagnosis and current testing available to help clinical laboratory professionals understand the nuances of HIV testing.
The roundtable will also deal with new diagnostic tools available, and new research, including new findings that that shows diagnosing early leads to better patient outcomes, Ricchiuti said. The roundtable will also examine best use cases for DNA testing and RNA testing. For example, in infants, new research shows that it’s better to look at DNA rather than RNA. These findings will be presented and discussed at the roundtable.
Ricchiuti has been holding HIV diagnostic round tables at the ADLM conference for many years, he said, and thinks it’s a perennial education topic that’s always well attended because it’s important to share knowledge and experience.
“It’s a very interactive roundtable,” he added. He hopes the information is helpful to foster discussion and designed his presentation so that information “will be easy to put into practice immediately in their labs as well,” he said. “That’s my goal.”
Ricchiuti said that in the past, half his audience at HIV roundtables came from academia, and half from industry, including supervisors and test developers. He hopes that this cross-pollination of experts from different realms will lead to new insights, connections, and discussions that extend beyond the conference session, and ultimately to better testing and care for patients.
Jen A. Miller is a freelance journalist who lives in Audubon, New Jersey. +X: @byJenAMiller.