April 18, 2012
Many germs live in our bodies or are common in our surroundings. A healthy immune system can fight them off or keep them under control. However, HIV infection can weaken the immune system. Infections that take advantage of weakened immune defenses are called "opportunistic infections." People with advanced HIV disease can get opportunistic infections. See Fact Sheet 500 for more information on opportunistic infections
One opportunistic infection in people with HIV is PCP. This stands for pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia, which affects the lungs. See Fact Sheet 515 for more information on PCP. People who have a CD4 cell count of less than 200 may develop PCP.
Health care providers sometimes use a combination of trimethoprim (see Fact Sheet 535) and dapsone to treat PCP. Dapsone can also be used to prevent PCP. If your CD4 cell count is below 200, ask your health care provider if you should be taking dapsone or another drug to prevent PCP.
Another opportunistic infection is toxoplasmosis (toxo), which affects the brain. See Fact Sheet 517 for more information on toxo. People who have a CD4 cell count of less than 100 may develop toxo. Dapsone can be used with the drug pyrimethamine to treat cases of toxo. This combination can also be used to prevent toxo.
Who Should Not Take Dapsone
For example, if you are taking dapsone to fight PCP and you miss too many doses, the PCP in your body could develop resistance to dapsone. Then you would have to take a different drug or combination of drugs to fight it.
The treatment continues as long as your CD4 cell count is low enough for you to develop toxo or PCP.
Dapsone can be taken with or without food. If your stomach gets upset when you take dapsone, take it with food.
Fact Sheet 555 on peripheral neuropathy).
Dapsone can make you sensitive to sunlight. If this occurs, use sun block on your skin and/or wear sunglasses.
Tell your health care provider if your skin gets pale or yellowish, or you get a sore throat, fever, or rash, even after a few weeks of taking dapsone. These might indicate a serious drug reaction.
Your health care provider should watch carefully for drug interactions if you are taking dapsone along with the protease inhibitors amprenavir (Ziagen) or saquinavir (Invirase), or the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors delavirdine (Rescriptor) or etravirine (Intelence).
Blood levels of dapsone can be reduced if you take rifampin, a drug used to treat tuberculosis (see Fact Sheet 518) or MAC (see Fact Sheet 514). Also, ddI can reduce absorption of dapsone. Take dapsone at least 2 hours before or after you take ddI.
This article was provided by AIDS InfoNet. Visit AIDS InfoNet's website to find out more about their activities and publications.