Reports from the conference

Introduction

Despite the fall in the value of the dollar, European delegates are fortunate that this specialist resistance workshop still alternates between European and North American sites. This years meeting in Sitges included a healthy balance between basic science and studies with more direct clinical importance.

Several themes emerged and they were covered by multiple presentations, including integrase resistance (14 posters with 3 oral presentations and a programmed discussion), susceptibility to etravrine (8 studies), resistance to other new drugs (another 15 or so studies) and co-receptor tropism assays (10 studies).

The remaining 100 studies covered all aspects of drug resistance, only a few of which we are able to cover below.

Reports in this issue of HTB include:

• Integrase inhibitor resistance and cross-resistance: weighing viral fitness and the option to benefit from second-generation compounds
• Understanding etravirine susceptibility: new weighted genotype score and phenotypic cut-offs
• Promising pipeline antiretrovirals: IDX899, CHX157 and bevirimat
• Lack of virological impact of treatment intensification in suppressed patients supports latent viral reservoir as source of residual viraemia
• Detecting viral tropism: impact of a more sensitive Trofile (ES) assay
• NNRTI resistance in infants prophylaxed with single-dose nevirapine varies by the timing of infection
• Low frequency K103N mutations are associated with poor virological response to NNRTI based therapy

Unless stated otherwise, references are to the Programme and Abstracts of the XVII International HIV Drug Resistance Workshop (IHDRW), 10-14 June 2008, Sitges, Spain published as Supplement 3 in Anitviral Therapy Volume 13 Issue 4.

Thanks to Anna-Maria Geretti for advice and comments on these reports.