RESEARCH ARTICLE
High Treatment Success Rates When Switching to Once Daily Nevirapine Containing Antiretroviral Therapy
Andrew Benzie1, Brett Marett1, Nicola E Mackie1, Alan Winston*, 1, 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 2
First Page: 89
Last Page: 93
Publisher ID: TOAIDJ-2-89
DOI: 10.2174/1874613600802010089
Article History:
Received Date: 13/11/2008Revision Received Date: 24/11/2008
Acceptance Date: 25/11/2008
Electronic publication date: 18/12/2008
Collection year: 2008

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Introduction
Two recent studies have highlighted low rates of virological response to once daily nevirapine containing combination antiretroviral therapy (CART) in treatment naïve HIV-1 infected subjects.
Aim
We assessed factors associated with treatment responses in a cohort of HIV-1 infected, therapy naïve individuals, commencing nevirapine CART with two nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI) containing either lamivudine or emtricitabine.
Results
Between January 2002 and 2006, 173 subjects (80 female) met the study inclusion criteria. All subjects initially commenced on twice daily nevirapine with six different NRTI backbones. Mean follow up was 802 days. 49 (28%) subjects switched to once daily nevirapine, 23 (13%) within the first year. After 48 weeks of therapy, HIV RNA was < 50 copies/mL in 154/173 subjects (89%). A trend was observed towards improved virological outcome (HIV RNA < 50 copies/mL) and switching to once daily nevirapine during the first year of therapy (p=0.051).
Conclusion
Whilst awaiting the results of prospective studies assessing once daily nevirapine, our data describe high treatment success rates and good safety responses when switching to once daily nevirapine.