Changing treatment

Changing treatment features

• 

  It's tough to make predictions

  “Generic HIV drugs 'less effective',” said the BBC headline. The article continued: “Any rise in the use of cheaper, non-branded HIV drugs could see more patients with treatment...

  From:  HIV treatment update

• 

  The generic generation

  In the next few years, some of the most widely used HIV drugs will come off patent in the UK. Gus Cairns asks: what are the...

  From:  HIV treatment update

• 

  HIV drug prescribing in London: changes from this month

  From April 2011, the preferred first- and second-line drug regimens for HIV-positive people in London are changing. The change in prescribing practice will not initially affect people...

  From:  HIV treatment update

• 

  Clinical monitoring as effective as CD4 count and viral load for deciding when to switch to second-line ART in poor countries

  This issue reviews monitoring options for switching to second-line in resource-poor settings. ...

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

• 

  Defining, and then watching for, treatment failure

  A review of various clinical, immunological and virological definitions of antiretroviral treatment failure in resource-limited settings....

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

• 

  HATIP #69, 20th June, 2006

  Rapid antibody tests can diagnose HIV infection in infants almost as well as DNA PCR, South African study showsThe use of two separate rapid antibody...

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

Changing treatment in your own words

• 

  My life with HIV

  I was born in Zambia in 1973 and came to England in April 1994 to live with my cousin to help her look after her...

  From:In your own words

Changing treatment news from aidsmap

• New integrase inhibitor dolutegravir helps treatment-experienced people on failing therapy

  The next-generation integrase inhibitor dolutegravir proved more beneficial than raltegravir (Isentress) for treatment-experienced people with resistance to two or more antiretroviral drug classes, researchers reported in a poster presented at the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2013) last week ...

  10 March 2013 | Liz Highleyman

• Second-line NRTI-sparing regimen proves equally effective for resource-limited settings

  A second-line antiretroviral regimen of lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra/Aluvia) and raltegravir (Isentress) proved just as effective as a regimen containing lopinavir/ritonavir and two or three nucleoside or nucleotide analogues in large study conducted in Australia, Africa, Latin America and Asia, researchers ...

  07 March 2013 | Keith Alcorn

• Can people with resistant HIV omit NRTIs when switching from a failing regimen?

  Omitting nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) when switching from a non-suppressive regimen to a new combination with at least two active agents can reduce pill burden and side-effects without compromising effectiveness, researchers reported yesterday at the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections ...

  07 March 2013 | Liz Highleyman

• Meta-analysis shows superiority of integrase inhibitors in first-line HIV therapy and benefits for people changing treatment due to resistance

  Antiretroviral combinations based on an integrase inhibitor are superior to other first-line HIV treatment regimens, according to the results of a meta-analysis published in the open access journal PLoS One. The study also showed the benefits of integrase inhibitor-containing regimens ...

  26 February 2013 | Michael Carter

• Australian researchers project that many HIV-positive people will run out of treatment options

  Running out of antiretroviral treatment options may severely curtail the life expectancy of people with HIV in resource-rich countries, according to Australian research published in the online edition of AIDS. The research expands upon a study ...

  22 January 2013 | Michael Carter

• Swiss research identifies factors associated with use of non-recommended HIV therapy

  New Swiss research shows the importance of observing antiretroviral treatment guidelines, even in people who have well-controlled HIV infection. Published in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, the study demonstrated that toxicities and concerns ...

  05 December 2012 | Michael Carter

• Glucose metabolism worsens in HIV treatment-experienced taking NRTI-sparing regimens

  Italian investigators have found evidence of worsening glucose tolerance in highly treatment-experienced HIV-positive patients treated with nucleoside-sparing regimens. The small study, which is published in the online edition of AIDS, monitored the glucose metabolism of 39 patients over three years. ...

  24 August 2012 | Michael Carter

• Are antiretroviral switch or simplification studies of benefit for patients?

  The attitude of physicians, ethics committees and medical journals to antiretroviral switch and simplification studies needs to be radically reappraised, according to an article published in PLoS Medicine. Before approval, studies of this type must show a clear potential advantage ...

  15 August 2012 | Michael Carter

• First generic HIV drugs could save US at least $920 million a year

  Even using very conservative estimates of efficacy, using two generic HIV drugs plus one branded one in the most popular first-line regimen instead of using all three in a single-pill fixed-dose combination would save $4000 per quality-adjusted year of ...

  27 July 2012 | Gus Cairns

• Second-line HIV therapy effective and durable in South Africa, and adherence support could improve rates of viral suppression

  Second-line antiretroviral therapy in South Africa achieves durable viral suppression in three-quarters of patients and is associated with an increase in CD4 cell count, investigators report in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. Therapy was ...

  27 June 2012 | Michael Carter

More news

Changing treatment news selected from other sources

• Computer models predict how patients will respond to HIV drugs

  Results of a new study demonstrate that computer models can predict how HIV patients whose drug therapy is failing will respond to a new treatment. Crucially for patients in poorer countries, the models do not require the results of expensive drug resistance tests to make their predictions. The study also showed that the models were able to identify alternative drug combinations that were predicted to work in cases where the treatment used in the clinic had failed, suggesting that their use could avoid treatment failure.

  14 March 2013 | Eurekalert Inf Dis

• PI monotherapy for HIV — an idea whose time has passed?

  Patients who switched from suppressive triple-drug therapy to boosted protease-inhibitor monotherapy had unreasonably high rates of treatment failure.

  05 December 2012 | Journal Watch

• Raltegravir-resistant HIV stays susceptible to dolutegravir in lab

  HIV resistant to the integrase inhibitor raltegravir and isolated from patients taking a failing raltegravir regimen remained largely susceptible to the integrase inhibitor dolutegravir in phenotypic susceptibility testing. Raltegravir-resistant virus carrying a mutation at position Q148 had more reduced susceptibility to dolutegravir than isolates with other raltegravir mutations.

  13 November 2012 | International AIDS Society

• Pegylated interferon may maintain HIV suppression and reduce viral DNA integration

  Adding pegylated interferon alfa to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV may help some people control viral replication when they interrupt treatment, according to a small study reported at this year's Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2012) and published in the October 26, 2012, advance online edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

  12 November 2012 | HIVandHepatitis.com

• Is protease inhibitor monotherapy sufficient to keep HIV under control in the brain?

  Researchers in Sweden and Switzerland have been conducting clinical trials of PI monotherapy and HIV-related neurological research. Recently, two teams have separately reported that their data strongly suggest that injury to cells within the brain has occurred in some participants when exposed to PI monotherapy. The Swedish team recommends that PI monotherapy be used cautiously until further clinical trials are completed and more detailed information on the brain health of participants becomes available.

  02 November 2012 | CATIE

• Booster HIV Drug Can Be Dropped

  In a randomized trial, switching away from the booster drug allowed treatment-experienced patients to keep HIV under control and reduced toxicity, according to David Wohl, MD, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

  13 September 2012 | MedPage Today

• FDA Approves INTELENCE® (etravirine) Tablets for Treatment-Experienced Pediatric Patients with HIV-1

  Janssen Therapeutics, Division of Janssen Products, LP, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved INTELENCE® (etravirine) to be administered in combination with other antiretroviral (ARV) medications for treatment of human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) in treatment-experienced pediatric patients (6 years to less than 18 years old) who are experiencing virologic failure with HIV-1 strains resistant to a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) and other ARVs.

  28 March 2012 | Janssen press release

• Gilead inks one combo HIV drug pact as it explores new ties with J&J -

  Under a new pact Gilead will combine its new boosting agent cobicistat with J&J's Prezista, a protease inhibitor. The companies also outlined ongoing talks on a separate pact  on the development and commercialization of a future single-tablet regimen combining Prezista with Gilead's Emtriva, its experimental GS 7340 and cobicistat. Gilead would be responsible for the development and commercialization of the new STR on a worldwide basis.

  28 June 2011 | FierceBiotech

• Emcure Pharmaceuticals donates second line AIDS drugs to NACA

  AS part of efforts to expand treatment for People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) and beat drug-resistance, an Indian company, Emcure Pharmaceuticals, has donated second line Anti Retroviral (ARV) drugs to the National Agency for the Control of AIDS

  19 May 2011 | Moreover.com HIV/AIDS feed

• International team to investigate second-line HIV therapy in Africa

  The largest clinical trial to investigate treatment options for individuals whose first combination of anti-HIV medicines is no longer working has been announced following the recruitment of 1,200 HIV-positive individuals from across five African

  18 May 2011 | University College Dublin

More news