A Boost for Boosting

Are you prone to missing doses of your antiretroviral drugs? If so, a Norvir-boosted protease inhibitor may be a good choice for you. A new Canadian study of 1,630 HIVers examining the links among treatment failure, specific anti-HIV drugs, and adherence has found that adherence of less than 95% significantly raised the risk of treatment failure for people taking an unboosted protease inhibitor or nonnucleoside drugs. But there was no increased risk seen among people on boosted protease inhibitor regimens. Norvir-boosted protease inhibitors remain at therapeutic levels in the body longer than other anti-HIV drugs, making an occasional delayed or missed dose unlikely to result in a loss of virological control and the emergence of drug resistance, according to the researchers. 'For individuals at high risk of suboptimal adherence, using boosted protease inhibitor'based regimens may achieve higher effectiveness rates,' they conclude.