Once-Daily Regimen Has High Failure Rate

An antiretroviral regimen containing Viread, Videx, and Sustiva may be appealing because each medication is dosed just once daily, but the drug combination has a high failure rate, particularly among patients with high baseline HIV viral loads and low nadir CD4-cell counts, researchers reported at the Third International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathegenesis and Treatment. One-quarter of treatment-naive patients taking the regimen experienced virologic failure after 12 weeks of treatment; of them, 60% had a pre-treatment HIV viral load higher than 100,000 copies and a CD4-cell count below 200 cells. The National Institutes of Health in July recommended HIV caregivers to avoid giving an initial drug regimen containing Viread, Videx, and a nonnuke to treatment-naive patients because of the risk of treatment failure.