Mitochondrial damage and lactic acidosis

April 2001     View PDF     En español

What are the common results of mitochondrial toxicity?

Anti-HIV drug side effects linked to mitochondrial toxicity have been around for years. It has been brought into the limelight recently because of its growing incidence and its possible role in lipodystrophy. The reason for the higher rate may be due to people taking anti-HIV drugs longer. As a result, some once rare side effects are now more common. It is also possible that mitochondrial toxicity has always been present but was poorly diagnosed. Previous analysis, for example, may have focused only on the symptoms or conditions which resulted from mitochondrial toxicity.

Other more common conditions related to mitochondrial toxicity include myopathy (muscle cell destruction and weakness), peripheral neuropathy (numbness and tingling in fingers and toes) and pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas). Many common blood abnormalities are also thought to be related to this condition. These include thrombocytopenia (low levels of platelets), anemia (low levels of red blood cells) and neutropenia (low levels of neutrophils). All these problems have been seen since the earliest use of nucleoside analogue drugs for HIV.

All these conditions are reversible if diagnosed early and the offending therapy is stopped or the dose is reduced when appropriate. However, in some cases, especially when the condition is improperly diagnosed and not managed well, the condition might become irreversible.