Changes for Visit 12

bank called the AIDS Malignancy Bank (AMB). Women do not need to have cancer, AIDS, or even be HIV-infected to enroll in this substudy. Women who are eligible and wish to donate tissue to the bank will have an extra cervical biopsy and blood specimen collected for this study at the time of their colposcopy examination.

What's new? We have been working hard behind the scenes to expand the types of gifts we offer you at your core visits. Last fall we scored big and got a generous donation of T-shirts from the GAP, for both you and your children. We hope you enjoy the shirts and our other collection of participant gifts.

We also received a nice donation from Roche Laboratories to spruce-up our quarterly newsletter. The newsletter is great way for the study staff to communicate with all of you and let you know what's happening, both within the WIHS and in general.  Please let us know if you have any news ideas for upcoming issues of the WIHS Woman Newsletter  (415-476-2513).

Thank you very much for being a part of this important study.  We look forward to seeing you at your next WIHS visit!

By Nancy Hessol, Project Director

he spring of the year 2000 ushers in visit 12, which will begin 4/1/00 and will end 9/30/00.  Here is an update on what the protocol changes are for visit 12.

What's ending? For visit 12, we will stop doing the tuberculosis (TB) test (call PPD) and the skin anergy tests. The TB test will be done once a year at every odd numbered study visit but the skin anergy tests will stop for good.
What's back?  For visit 12, we will bring back the blood tests called CBC's (complete blood counts) and flow cytometry (t-cell testing) on women who are not infected with HIV.  For HIV-negative women, these special blood tests will be done once a year at every even numbered study visit.

Also back for visit 12 is one of the modules (form 26) of the interview. For all study participants, the administration of form 26 will be done once a year at every even numbered study visit.

What's continuing? The Interim Event telephone interview for HIV-infected women whose most recent (within the last 3 months) CD4 cell count was under 200.  We will also continue to the HHV-8 sub-study. Women who are eligible for this sub-study are those who have tested positive for HHV-8 and who are HIV-positive. This protocol involves 3 additional study visits and collection of blood, saliva, and anal swabs and be done by both the core WIHS clinicians and the dental study clinicians.

For women undergoing cervical colposcopy, we will continue enrollment into a cancer tissue