8-11 February 2004, San Francisco

About 3,500 doctors, researchers, healthcare workers, journalists and community advocates attended the 11th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections held in San Francisco from 8-11 February, 2004. This meeting is one of the most important annual meetings, and is prioritised by many researchers as the first choice platform for their research.

There is always more to report from this meeting than we can summarise in HTB and links to recommended sites that provide a wide range of additional reports are included in our ‘On The Web’ section at the end of HTB.

Many of the overview presentations are available as audio and video webcasts from the conference website, and include slide presentations from these talks, and is accessible from both Mac and PCs. The conference website also has access to searchable abstracts online and many of the full posters are posted as pdf files.

http://www.retroconference.org

Unless stated otherwise, all references in the following articles are to the Programme and Abstracts of the 11th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, 8-11 February 2004, San Francisco.

Reports in this issue include:

• Drug levels can persist for more than two weeks after stopping efavirenz

• Race affects absorption and clearance of efavirenz

• COLATE study shows no clinical benefit from continuing 3TC to maintain M184V mutation

• Treatment with generics: tolerability, safety and resistance

• Triple PI interactions: atazanavir increases saquinavir levels in ritonavir-boosted once-daily combination

• Triple PI interactions: fosamprenavir and Kaletra interaction is difficult to overcome

• Ribavirin (RBV) does not alter intracellular levels of AZT, 3TC or d4T

• Studies of new pipeline drugs

• Little benefit seen for treatment during acute infection

• Summary of resistance studies at Retrovirus

• Update on peripheral neuropathy in HIV-infection

• Smoking marijuana provides analgesic effect on HIV neuropathy

• Two D:A:D updates: cardiovascular risk from HAART, and predictors of hypertension and changes in blood pressure

• Low-dose rHGH maintains reductions in abdominal fat for 60 weeks

• Rosiglitazone shows no benefit for lipoatrophy

• Hypertension related to HAART in HIV-positive women

• Testosterone therapy for women with low androgen levels or body weight

• Nevirapine, pregnancy and adverse events

• Prior nevirapine exposure for pregnant women can contribute to treatment failure

• Conflicting findings with HAART use in pregnancy and prematurity

• Antiretrovirals, mode of delivery and transmission risk

• Tenofovir studies in children

• Increase of non-AIDS defining cancers in HOPS cohort

• HIV/HCV coinfection: superiority of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin, but lower response rate compared to mono-infected patients, especially for genotype-1

• Epoetin-alfa improves interferon/ribavirin-associated anaemia