and stabilised their CD4 count at 400. With a
1995 French study already showing that receiving PHI can delay the onset of Aids in recipients, there may be a new upsurge of interest in this win-win therapy.
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contents
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Several new studies provide some answers to the contentious question
of which anti-HIV drugs work better in 'real world' settings.
Doctors at the Chelsea and Westminster and Royal Free Hospitals in London
pooled data on 888 patients and how they did on their first anti-HIV combination.
After eliminating possible causes of bias, it appeared that patients taking
efavirenz-based combos were 25 per cent more likely to achieve an undetectable
viral load than those taking ones based on nevirapine or any protease
inhibitor.
Another survey, by Professor Andrew Phillips of the Royal Free, looked
at 1325 patients who started nevirapine and 878 efavirenz after July 1997.
But after other differences were weeded out, those taking efavirenz were
43 per cent less likely to fail their regimes.
Findings presented at December's ICAAC Conference by Canada's Dr Julio
Montaner, the FOCUS study, compared patients using efavirenz with ones
taking the PIs saquinavir and ritonavir (SAQ/r). 80 per cent of patients
on efavirenz had viral loads under 50 compared with 60 per cent on SAQ/r.
This difference appeared
mainly due to more SAQ/r patients stopping their regimes.
