Important note: Information in this article was accurate in June 2001. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.AIDSWEEKLY Plus; Monday, June 25, 2001
Michael Greer, Senior Medical Writer
NewsRx - The protease inhibitor saquinavir appears to provide less control of HIV infection than its cousins do, researchers in Europe report.
Ole Kirk and colleagues working with the EuroSIDA Study Group compared the clinical response of HIV patients treated with either saquinavir, indinavir, or ritonavir in hard gel capsule (hgc) form as part of a three (or more)-drug cocktail.
Saquinavir produced significantly inferior results than the other compounds in terms of immune reconstitution and viral control, Kirk and coworkers found.
After a year of treatment with a saquinavir-containing cocktail, the median increase in patients' CD4+ T-cell count was 74 x 106 CD4+ cells/l of blood, the researchers said. By contrast, the median increases in CD4 cell counts were 90 x 106 and 96 x 106 cells/l in patients treated with ritonavir- and indinavir-based regimens, respectively.
Roughly half of the patients treated with drug combinations containing ritonavir (47%) or indinavir (54%) achieved viral loads of less than 500 copies of HIV RNA/ml of blood, study data showed. However, patients who underwent therapy with a saquinavir-based cocktail had only a 41% chance of achieving such a low viral load.
Although similar proportions of patients in each treatment group progressed to full-blown AIDS (roughly 9%-12% in each cohort), multivariate analysis suggested that saquinavir-treated patients were at a higher risk of progression than those treated with other protease inhibitors ("Clinical outcome among HIV infected patients starting saquinavir hard gel compared to ritonavir or indinavir," AIDS 2001 May 25;15(8):999-1008.
"Saquinavir ... was associated with an inferior long-term clinical response relative to indinavir, which was consistent with the observed differences in virological and immunological responses," Kirk and colleagues concluded.
The corresponding author for this report is Ole Kirk, EuroSIDA Coordinating Centre, Department of Infectious Diseases, Hvidovre Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
A search at www.NewsRx.net using the search term "AIDS and HIV therapy" yielded 1,191 articles in six specialized reports.
Key points reported in this study include:
This article was prepared by AIDS Weekly editors from staff and other reports.
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