Sculptra transforms faces of HIV patients

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 03/11/2008
Reporter: Deborah Cornwall

It is more than two decades since the aids virus was first identified as a disease that meant almost certain death. This week the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will decide whether a product called Sculptra, normally used by cosmetic surgeons to beautify their patients, should be made freely available to to HIV sufferers to help restore their facial appearance.

Transcript
KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: It's more than two decades since the AIDS virus was first identified as a disease that meant almost certain death. In the past decade, a new generation of drugs has meant most HIV sufferers can now expect to live on into old age. But while up to 30,000 Australians with HIV will ultimately be kept alive with treatment, these same drugs also cause horrific side effects that can leave patients with bodies and faces so gaunt and disfigured most are forced to withdraw from society.

This week, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee will decide whether a product called Sculptra, normally used by cosmetic surgeons to beautify their patients should be made freely available to HIV sufferers to help restore their facial appearance and give them a chance to live a normal life again. Deborah Cornwall reports.

STEVEN LIEW, PLASTIC SURGEON: Some patient are so conscious about their look, that they have all the mirrors in their house covered because they just couldn't bear to see themselves.

ROBERT PEARSON, AIDS VICTIM: Depending on how severe the facial wasting is, it can look quite scary. You know, it can be like a skeleton on legs, basically.

DEBORAH CORNWALL, REPORTER: Robert Pearson is a rare survivor of the AIDS holocaust, when back in the '80s, testing positive meant almost certain death.

The disease cut short his dancing career, but he was alive.

ROBERT PEARSON: I was lucky enough to just stay quite well for a number of years, until in 1993, my health started to deteriorate. And basically, I came home to die.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: Robert Pearson was saved again, this time by the new generation of anti-retroviral drugs that came onto the market in the mid-'90s. But while these drugs now take HIV patients into old age, for at least half of them, it also comes at a terrible price: severely disfiguring side effects like body and facial wasting.

ROBERT PEARSON: I became a recluse because the - basically, it was a death of my face, with the face caving in. Because people stared a lot when you had this and although they didn't come up and say anything in particular, it was like little kids, you know, whispering behind their hands.

STEVEN LIEW: It's almost as though they're walking around with a cardboard with a label: "HIV positive".

DEBORAH CORNWALL: Dr Steven Liew is one of the country's leading plastic surgeons. His practice in inner Sydney's Darlinghurst attracts a who's who of the rich and famous. But it's also in the heart of the country's gay capital, and he was among the first who began treating HIV patients for the cruel side effects from their treatments.

STEVEN LIEW: Essentially, they wake up one day, look in the mirror and say, "Who is this guy I'm staring at?" In the most severe case, when I see the patient, it's almost as though I'm talking to a skeleton which is a thin layer of skin covering the skeleton, not much else in between.

DEBORAH CORNWALL: Health worker Mark Fawcett says he was so desperate to stop the changes to his face, at first he'd tried overeating.

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