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Combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) is far simpler than it was 2 decades ago, and it entails many fewer adverse effects. Even so, some patients do not adhere to daily oral medications, not even well-tolerated, single-dose combinations. For these patients, a regimen of monthly injected drugs cannot arrive too soon.
To test such an approach, investigators conducted an industry-supported, noninferiority, open-label, phase II trial involving 286 treatment-naive, HIV-infected patients who were randomized to a combination of oral daily rilpivirine and cabotegravir or to intramuscular drugs administered once every 4 or 8 weeks. Most participants were white (79%) and male (92%), with pretreatment viral loads <100,000 (82%), and all had CD4 cell…