PREVALENCE OF MUTATION ASSOCIATED TO RESISTANCE WITH NUCLEOSIDE ANALOGS IN A COHORT OF NAIVE HIV-1 POSITIVE SUBJECTS DURING THE PERIOD 1984-1997

We examined samples from 98 native HIV-1 positive patients with the se roconversion period between 1984 and 1997, 64 of whom with a diagnosed primary infection. We observed a progressive increase in the percenta ge of patients harboring mutations associated with zidovudine resistan ce, starting from 8% during the period 1987-1994 to 20% and 36% in pat ients with HIV infection diagnosed during 1996 and 1997 respectively. The small number of patients analyzed in groups 3 and 4 is an importan t limitation to establish the real increase in the prevalence of mutat ions we observed during the past two years. However it is important to underline the trend and, in our opinion, further studies to better de fine the relevance of such phenomenon in the clinical practice must be performed.