New Life for Girl in Grip of AIDS

Lorna Horn gets out of bed at 6:30 a.m. to shower and dress for school. Then she walks Dolly, the family’s rambunctious Jack Russell terrier.

These may not be big achievements for most 13-year-olds, but to Lorna and her parents, they are miraculous.

A year ago, Lorna, who has AIDS, couldn’t face mornings. Her stomach ached from the massive doses of drugs she took to stay alive. She didn’t have the energy to shower, go to school or care for her dog. Often, she went to the hospital.

Things are different now, and Lorna looks forward this year to a new lease on life.

Lorna has been taking ritonavir, a new type of protease inhibitor introduced less than a year ago to combat AIDS. The drug significantly controls a protein that the virus needs to spread.

Since she started feeling better, she has been able to lead a more normal life. She spends entire days at school.

She invites friends to go on walks with her and her dog, and she recently hosted a sleepover, taking friends to play miniature golf.

“I’m helping the medicine help me,” Lorna said, explaining that she eats properly and takes her medicine on time. “I think it’s going to make me live longer.”

Lorna has been sick most of her life. Two years ago, doctors discovered she had AIDS, probably contracted from a blood transfusion during heart surgery when she was 2 months old.

Lorna’s parents heard that protease inhibitors improved the condition of some adult AIDS patients, and they wanted Lorna to get the same treatment.

It wasn’t easy at first. Her parents, Jaymie Horn and John Gurden of Anaheim, learned that the drug was approved in March only for use on adults.

Doctors at a Maryland hospital, renowned for treating pediatric AIDS patients, refused to give protease inhibitors to Lorna because of her other medical problems, including asthma and a heart murmur.

“I was disgusted,” Jaymie Horn said. “I argued and argued and screamed and yelled.”

In August, doctors at Children’s Hospital Orange County agreed to treat Lorna with the new drug, and the results have been remarkable on her, they said.

“Her disease is under much better control,” said Dr. David Lang, head of the hospital’s infectious-disease department. “It appears it’s a significant step forward.”

It is common for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve drugs for adult use without specifically approving them for children. While doctors can prescribe such new drugs for children anyway, they often have reservations, Lang said.

Ritonavir is not a cure for AIDS, but it can reduce the amount of virus in the body by as much as 99%, according to a study about protease inhibitors by the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center.

Since Lorna started taking the drug, she has gained 14 pounds, often helping herself to cheese and tortillas from the refrigerator. And she hasn’t been admitted to the hospital in four months.

Best of all, her mother says, she has spunk.

“I’m feeling more active,” Lorna said as she wrestled with her dog. “I’m not just sitting around, and I am playing with my dog more often.”