Med Monitor

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a tablet formulation of Kaletra. The new tablets do not require refrigeration, can be taken with or without food, and reduce the dosage from six to four pills daily. __________ GlaxoSmithKline has ended two clinic trials of aplaviroc, an experimental entry inhibitor, after participants in each developed severe liver damage. __________ Patients experiencing lipodystrophy achieve benefits from diabetes treatments Avandia and Glucophage, scientists reported in the September 6 edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine. Both drugs lowered blood glucose levels and insulin resistance, but Avandia also partially corrected fat loss, while Glucophage lowered blood lipids and improved vascular function. Since the drugs have different effects, they should be tailored to each patient's lipodystrophy symptoms, the researchers concluded __________ Federal HIV treatment guidelines have been revised to recommend Fuzeon with a boosted protease inhibitor in patients with three-class virologic failure. This combination offers better and more prolonged virologic suppression than other regimens. __________ Results from a large-scale study of Kaletra featured in the September 2 edition of the journal AIDS have shown that liver-related side effects associated with the drug are rare. Although previous studies have suggested that 2% to 11% of Kaletra users would experience severe hepatotoxicity, this one saw only five patients--0.66%--experiencing severe liver side effects; four of them were coinfected with hepatitis C. __________ Combining Viread and Videx for treatment-experienced HIV patients results in only very small increases in CD4-cell counts, and because of this it should be recommended only with a low dose of Videx and only for patients without other treatment options, researchers wrote in the September 15 edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. __________ HIVers with long-term viral suppression experience no loss in viral control when switching from a protease inhibitor to Viramune, according to a study in the September edition of the journal HIV Medicine. Hypertriglyceridemia and lipodystrophy are also reduced. __________ A study by German researchers has suggested that the facial lipoatrophy treatment Sculptra is more effective if injected deeper into subcutaneous tissue than what early dosing recommendations call for. Writing in the journal Skin Pharmacology and Physiology, the researchers said deeper injections also minimize injection-site reactions. __________ OraSure Technologies is seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for at-home use for its OraQuick Advance Rapid HIV 1/2 Antibody Test.