HIV and ID Observations

November 6th, 2013

SINGLE Study Underscores Waning of the Efavirenz Era — But Probably Just in the USA

In today’s New England Journal of Medicine, the SINGLE study finally makes its appearance “in print.”  (The study results were first presented over a year ago.) The highlights: SINGLE was a double-blind, randomized clinical trial comparing abacavir/lamivudine plus dolutegravir to tenofovir/FTC/efavirenz in 833 treatment-naive study subjects. That’s right, three different drugs in each arm — you […]

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October 30th, 2013

HIV Treatment of Serodiscordant Couples: The Home Run, Slam Dunk, and Open Goal in Clinical Research

Just in time for Game 6 of the World Series, my colleague Rochelle Walensky has published a paper in theNew England Journal of Medicine (covered here in NEJM Journal Watch). evaluating the cost-effectiveness of treating HIV-infected individuals in serodiscordant couples. The results: In South Africa, early ART was cost-saving over a 5-year period. In both South Africa and India, early […]

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October 25th, 2013

GARDEL Two-Active-Drug Study Not a Game-Changer, but Might Be a Paradigm-Shifter

Don’t look now, but a two-drug lamivudine (3TC) + LPV/r strategy did just as well as a standard three-drug regimen of two NRTIs + LPV/r. Better, actually, since virologic outcomes were the same and the two-drug regimen had fewer side effects. Here are the key details about the GARDEL study, presented just this week by Pedro […]

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October 14th, 2013

MODERN Study Stopped: An NRTI-Sparing, Two-Drug Initial Regimen Disappoints Again

In case you didn’t know, “MODERN” is the clever name for the “Maraviroc Once-daily with Darunavir Enhanced by Ritonavir in a New regimen” trial, which compared TDF/FTC to maraviroc, both with boosted darunavir. And once again, the NRTI-sparing two-drug regimen comes up short, this time in a fully powered, double-blind noninferiority study. From a PDF provided by […]

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October 7th, 2013

CD4 Cell Count at Presentation: A Figure with a Depressingly Small Upward Slope

You know how to make an ID/HIV specialist angry? Frustrated? Sigh loudly? Tell a clinical anecdote that involves “late” presentation of HIV diagnosis, in particular someone who has been seeking medical care for various ailments for months or even years without getting tested. You know — it goes something like this: “He was seen 3 years ago for […]

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September 20th, 2013

CROI Abstract Submissions Now Open, and Old CROI Website Still “Lost” in Cyberspace

HIV researchers can now submit their abstracts to the 2014 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections — or “CROI”. (It rhymes with “soy”, as in “soy sauce”; or, if you prefer, “oy”, as in “oy vey”.) Further details here. General submission for abstracts closes on October 8. Meanwhile, people continue to wonder what happened to the now defunct CROI website, […]

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August 28th, 2013

Poll: At $14,105/year, Is Dolutegravir Fairly Priced?

The recently approved once-daily integrase inhibitor dolutegravir is now in pharmacies and, like every new HIV drug, the price — around $14k/year — has generated some controversy. For the record, here are the per-year wholesale acquisition costs of the three FDA-approved integrase inhibitors. Raltegravir:  $12,976 Elvitegravir:  $13,428 (once disentangled from the price of TDF/FTC) Dolutegravir:  $14,105 If […]

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August 12th, 2013

Dolutegravir Approval Signals a Beginning and the End of Something Very Special

As anticipated, the FDA approved dolutegravir today for HIV treatment, the third integrase inhibitor now available. This was about as surprising as the arrival of Royal Baby Prince George. We knew dolutegravir was coming soon, just not exactly when or what it would be named. Here’s a short list of the data we have thus far on this drug […]

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August 7th, 2013

Occupational Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP) Guidelines Updated — And They Are Clear and Sensible

Good news here — the United States Public Health Service has issued new national guidelines for management of occupational exposure to HIV. Authored by an expert panel, these updated occupational PEP guidelines replace the (woefully outdated, sorry, had to write that) previous version, which dates back to 2005. On a quick read-through, despite the density of print, the […]

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August 1st, 2013

Poll: Will There Be A Shortage of HIV Providers?

Over on NEJM Journal Watch — love that new name — I reviewed a paper on the demographics of people living with AIDS in San Francisco. Bottom line — more than half are now older than 50. Implication — that’s so old! First, it really isn’t, unless you compare it to the dismal era 20+ years ago, when […]

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