DO DUAL NUCLEOSIDE REGIMENS HAVE A ROLE IN AN ERA OF PLASMA VIRAL LOAD-DRIVEN ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY

This study was undertaken to characterize predictors of response to do uble nucleoside combinations among 245 human immunodeficiency virus-in fected persons initiating antiretroviral therapy, The median time for receiving antiretroviral therapy in this group was 6 months, and the p lasma virus load was 58,000 copies/mL. The most commonly prescribed re gimens were zidovudine/lamivudine (154 subjects, 63%) and stavudine/la mivudine (46 subjects, 19%). A total of 96 (39%) subjects had their vi rus load decrease to <500 copies/mL after the initiation of therapy. O f the 245 study subjects, 102 (41.6%) had greater than or equal to 5 m onths of follow-up and two or more consecutive virus load determinatio ns performed after the start of antiretroviral therapy. Multivariate a nalysis demonstrated that baseline virus load was the only significant factor associated with obtaining two or more plasma virus loads of <5 00 copies/mL. Overall, these data demonstrate that dual nucleoside the rapy (using currently licensed agents) cannot reliably achieve a high level of suppression of plasma virus load.