Drug level testing as a strategy to determine eligibility for drug resistance testing after failure of ART: a retrospective analysis of South African adult patients on second-line ART.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

When protease inhibitor (PI)-based second-line ART fails, guidelines recommend drug resistance testing and individualized third-line treatment. However, PI-resistant viral strains are rare and drug resistance testing is costly. We investigated whether less costly PI-exposure testing can be used to select those patients who would benefit most from drug resistance testing.

Methods

We performed a retrospective analysis of South African adults living with HIV experiencing failure of ritonavir-boosted-lopinavir (LPV/r)-based second-line ART for whom drug resistance testing results were available. We included patients who received plasma-based drug resistance testing at a central South African reference laboratory in 2017 and patients who received dried blood spots (D

SUBMITTER: Hermans LE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7282495 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature