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Early reports from CROI 2017

12 February 2017. Related: News.

NEW CROI LOGO 2017Introduction

The 24th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2017) was held in Seattle from 13-16 February 2017.

More than 4000 researchers and health workers (and a good inclusion of community activists) worked through more than 1000 studies presented at the meeting.

Luckily, CROI supports open access to the conference materials online, including comprehensive webcasts of all oral presentations – available immediately after each session.

The programme for the meeting and abstract books can be downloaded as PDF files.
http://www.croiconference.org/electronic-materials

The searchable abstracts database links directly to PDF files for most posters.
http://www.croiconference.org/abstracts/search-abstracts

CROI is one of the leading scientific HIV meetings. But despite the last minute reversal of the proposed US travel restrictions, many delegates were suggesting that if similar entry restrictions are reimposed, then international medical conferences should perhaps not be held in the US and that CROI could be moved to Mexico or Canada.

This detracts nothing from the leading work by IAS-USA and US scientists. It is a way to refuse to normalise racist policies than exclude global inclusion in medical conferences.

And the exciting news: there will be much to report, especially in the following areas:

  • New HIV treatments. Several studies present new data on new nukes (MK-8591 and GS-9131), NNRTIs (doravirine and elsulfavirine), integrase inhibitors (cabotegravir, bictegravir), and monoclonal antibodies (ibalizumab, PRO140 and UB-421).
  • HIV and ageing. Especially the issue of neurocognitive performance.
  • Reduced drug maintenance strategies. Using two or even one drug rather than three; including studies on dolutegravir monotherapy (which is no longer recommended) and dual therapy with lamivudine.
  • HIV and children. Notably first results using dolutegravir in 2–6 year olds, and exposure data from crushed tablets; lopinavir super boosted with rifampicin-based TB co-treatment, and problems with starting this protease inhibitor at seven days of life. Several studies look at starting ART early in neonates.
  • Treatment access. 90:90:90 updates, including the importance on including migrants in national targets, not doing so can be a barrier to population health.
  • ART in pregnancy. Including adverse birth outcomes according to ART regimen.
  • Anal cancer. Sceening, diagnosis and treatment.
  • Coinfections – TB and HCV. New treatments for TB and looking at TB IRIS. New hepatitis C drugs including results in people with coinfection and cirrhosis and the impact on sexual transmission in gay men.
  • Lifestyle-related changes. Smoking, diet and exercise.
  • PrEP. A major focus for prevention – and including a rare case of infection despite good adherence.
  • Advances in cure research. Including interventions in acute infection and stem sell transplantation.
  • Health literacy, demographics and viral load outcomes. Subjects close to our heart…

Early HTB reports from CROI 2017 are already online