[The future of HIV therapy. Research pipelines are filled with options]

Following the first international conference in 1999, twice as many new antiretroviral substances are in the early clinical or preclinical phase of investigation as are currently approved for ART in Germany. These data are almost certainly not complete, and the number of "candidates" will be larger rather than smaller. Nevertheless they send a clear message. Antiretroviral treatments guided by therapeutic pessimism are anything but up to date. This applies to inadequate dual treatments or the delayed use of ART. The plethora of new medications with no, or virtually no, cross-resistance vis-a-vis previously approved substances renders in admissible any reasons advanced for delayed or reserved treatment. The present article has been written also for those therapists who, for the reasons set out above, have so far greatly delayed, or have provided only "half-hearted", treatment. In the near future, ART will comprise not only the inhibition of HIV replication, but will also deal with immune reconstruction. As in the last 15 years, antiretroviral therapeutic strategies will be the signposts and pacemakers for the treatment of other infectious diseases, too. Not least of the conditions included are such important chronic viral ailments as hepatitis B or C, which have just successfully crossed the combination therapy threshold. It is to be hoped that a maximum number of the substances presented here will pass the proving period leading a full-blown antiretroviral medication.