HIV and ID Observations

December 8th, 2024

Who’s Going to Get Lenacapavir for HIV Prevention?

At the International AIDS Conference this past summer, Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker brought down the house presenting the results of the PURPOSE 1 trial of twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir for prevention of HIV in women. The results — zero infections out of over 2000 participants — demonstrated clear superiority over oral PrEP with TDF/FTC. The study simultaneously […]

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July 25th, 2024

Lenacapavir PrEP Trial Brings Down the House at the International AIDS Conference

Yesterday, at the 2024 AIDS Conference in Munich, we experienced one of those thrilling moments you always hope for when attending a scientific conference. Dr. Linda-Gail Bekker, speaking on behalf of the study investigators, presented the data on the PURPOSE-1 study of HIV prevention using twice-yearly injectable lenacapavir; results were simultaneously published in the New England […]

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March 22nd, 2025

Really Rapid Review: CROI 2025 San Francisco

Wow, that was an interesting conference — in ways both good and bad. The good part was the content, as the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) is our leading HIV research conference. There was plenty of interesting stuff. The not-so-good part was the stunned state of many HIV clinicians and researchers. So much of […]

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November 27th, 2024

Some ID Things to Be Grateful for This Holiday Season — 2024 Edition

The calendar says it’s nearly the fourth Thursday of November, so here in the United States, the Thanksgiving holiday is upon us. It’s a day when we gather with family and friends to express thanks, to eat plenty (usually too much), to watch a bunch of spectacular athletes bash themselves to smithereens in the name […]

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June 20th, 2024

Early Heatwave ID Link-o-Rama

We’ll get to the links in a moment, but first, a little poll. You might have heard that there’s a new Editor-in-Chief at NEJM Journal Watch, Dr. Raja-Elie Abdulnour. We met recently, and discussed this column or blog or newsletter or whatever you want to call it. A topic came up that we’ve been wondering about […]

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March 13th, 2024

CROI 2024 Denver: Really Rapid Review

One of the most rewarding things about social media in medicine is tapping into the minds of other smart people in your field, especially people you can’t otherwise interact with on a day-to-day basis. When that person is someone like Dr. Sébastien Poulin — a funny and indefatigable ID/HIV doctor from Montreal — it’s especially worthwhile. […]

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June 2nd, 2023

Continued Activity of NRTIs Despite Resistance Is a Real Thing

In our last post, we reviewed a case of a person with longstanding HIV with extensive multi-class resistance, but now a decade of viral suppression. They’re currently on an HIV treatment regimen of fully active raltegravir, partially active etravirine, and barely active (or not active at all!) darunavir. There are no NRTIs in the regimen, […]

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February 28th, 2023

Really Rapid Review — CROI 2023, Seattle

In a recent chat I had on a local TV network on this year’s respiratory virus season, the host mentioned that “this year felt very post-pandemic”, prompting me reflexively to knock wood — and I’m not a superstitious person. But even we ID doctors must acknowledge the dramatic improvement in COVID severity this winter compared to […]

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October 31st, 2021

Interesting and Important Studies from IAS 2021 and IDWeek That Caught My Eye

As noted in my previous post, attending virtual meetings poses some serious challenges. The biggest obstacle:  trying to do one’s regular job while periodically checking in (or more likely not checking in) on the meeting. And while I might have been able to pull off some Really Rapid Reviews© after a few virtual meetings, not so […]

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March 14th, 2021

Really Rapid Review — CROI 2021 Virtual

For a few years in the early 2010s, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) — in my opinion our premiere HIV scientific meeting — covered almost as many hepatitis C clinical trials as those on HIV. Or at least it seemed that way. This made sense at the time — the startling success of […]

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