Med Monitor

The Food and Drug Administration approved the first single-capsule, once-a-day protease inhibitor in late October. Reyataz is now available in 300-milligram form, to be boosted with Norvir. ----- The French National Agency for Research on AIDS has released study results that show the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission can be greatly reduced by combining treatment of AZT and lamivudine at the end of pregnancy and during delivery with alternatives to breast feeding. ----- Boehringer-Ingelheim has halted a three-year study of protease inhibitor Aptivus among treatment-naive HIVers because of poor viral control. The proportion of study subjects who achieved a viral load below 50 after 48 weeks of treatment with 500 milligrams of Aptivus plus a booster dose of Norvir was more than 15% lower than those taking Kaletra. ----- Protease inhibitors Lexiva and Kaletra are similar in safety and effectiveness, according to a 48-week, 878-patient study published in the August 5 edition of The Lancet, leading researchers to conclude that Lexiva could soon be considered a preferred protease option on par with Kaletra. ----- A three-year study of 765 patients reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association has found no advantage in adding a fourth drug to the standard three-drug cocktail for treating newly diagnosed HIV patients. Researchers gave two groups of treatment-naive patients each a regimen containing five pills daily. The researchers found the four-drug cocktail, which added abacavir, offered no benefit over the three-drug cocktail either in terms of reduced viral load or increased CD4-cell count.