HIV and ID Observations

July 28th, 2011

Really Rapid Review — IAS 2011 Rome

Just back from IAS 2011 (which was followed, I’m thrilled to say, with a visit to perhaps the most beautiful region in the world). Here is a Really Rapid Review™ of the meeting, with apologies ahead of time for lack of organization and (even more likely) leaving out something important.  FYI, the abstracts are online […]

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January 26th, 2011

Insurance Company Cheese Shop Redux

I had an interesting exchange with one of our nurses this week about a long-term patient of ours. The e-mails went something like this: Got a fax from —-‘s insurance that his Lipitor won’t be covered anymore.  They will cover simvastatin, lovastatin, and pravastatin.  Let me know what you want to do. Charlie He’s on darunavir, and […]

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December 22nd, 2010

Holiday Hafnias

Some items to consider in HIV/ID world as you dig into your salmonella-free holiday bird: Drug label change for stavudine (d4T):  The label no longer has recommendations for dose-reduction in case of peripheral neuropathy, and cites data more strongly linking d4T use to lipoatrophy.  The strategy of decreasing the dose to reduce d4T toxicity hasn’t made […]

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February 13th, 2009

CROI 2009: Greatest Hits

Fresh back from lovely Montreal, where the temperature (I’m glad to report) climbed into the balmy 40’s … Here’s a rapid-fire listing of the Greatest Hits.  As I’m sure to be leaving something off this list, happy to accept other suggestions: Interleukin-2 does not work.  The ESPRIT and SILCAAT studies are over. Yes, the CD4’s increase, but […]

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January 29th, 2009

Too Many Options: What Actually Happened

We recently published a case in AIDS Clinical Care entitled “Too Many Options”, describing a patient with longstanding HIV infection, virologic failure, and resistance to NRTIs, NNRTIs, and PIs. Fortunately, resistance and tropism testing gave him several options for a new drug regimen — including darunavir, etravirine, maraviroc, enfuvirtide, and — if one believes phenotypic NRTI […]

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January 13th, 2009

Can We Have “Too Many Options?”

As part of our regular series “Antiretroviral Rounds” in AIDS Clinical Care, today we post a case of a highly treatment-experienced patient with dreaded “triple class” resistance — that is, resistance to NRTIs, NNRTIs, and PIs. The good news now, of course, is that we have more than these three drug classes. The tough part is choosing […]

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November 22nd, 2008

“Salvage” Rx for HIV: Macro Good News, Micro Bad News

I’ve written before how the number of treatment experienced patients who have no options for successful therapy has dwindled to a tiny — but unfortunate — few.  Darunavir, maraviroc, raltegravir, and etravirine (in order of FDA approval) are that good. Two presentations at recent scientific meetings confirmed the staggering efficacy of these newer drugs. Notably, both […]

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