More Studies of Virologic Failure

Adding to a growing body of research, two new studies show that fewer than half the people prescribed combination antiretroviral therapy will achieve undetectable viral loads.

Clinical trials of antiretroviral therapy in individuals naive to protease inhibitors have generally found that approximately 80% of patients will achieve viral loads below the limits of detection. However, in actual clinical practice, antiretroviral effectiveness usually falls somewhat short of this success rate. In these two retrospective studies, researchers described the risk factors for virologic failure.

Lucas et al. examined the effectiveness of PI-based antiretroviral therapy in the Johns Hopkins HIV Clinic from March 1996 to February 1998. Patients were include…