Most Powerful HIV Drug!
2008-05-15 05:37:12.0
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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- One of the most commonly prescribed triple-drug combinations for HIV is also the most effective, but a separate two-drug regime may work as well, new research reveals.
The study looked at nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), one of the first class of HIV drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as a two-drug regimen not including NRTIs, which are known to cause serious side effects in some patients.
Researchers studied 753 participants and found the three-drug regime combining efavirenz and NRTI therapy suppressed the virus more effectively than the drug combination of lopinavir-ritonavir plus NRTI. During the almost two-year study, 24 percent of the patients in the efavirenz group had their HIV return to detectable levels, compared to 33 percent in the lopinavir-ritonavir group. They also found combining lopinavir-ritonavir and efavirenz had a similar level of effectiveness to the triple-drug regimens containing NRTIs. Twenty-seven percent of participants in that group had their HIV return to detectable levels. Immune responses improved in all three treatment regimens.
“Although all three regimens were well-tolerated and effective, our results showed that efavirenz with NRTIs should still be considered the gold standard regimen for initial HIV treatment,” Sharon Riddler, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, was quoted as saying. “The results from the NRTI-sparing regimen have given us valuable reassurance that we can utilize a two-drug therapy regimen based on lopinavir-ritonavir plus efavirenz for patients who are unable to take NRTI due to side effects.”
SOURCE: New England Journal of Medicine, 2008;358:2095-2106
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