HTB

September/October 2014: Volume 15 Number 9/10

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This edition of HTB includes conference reports from the 54th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) and a few final ones from the 20th International AIDS Conference (IAS 2014).

Updates from ICAAC include: news on tenofovir alafenamide, suggesting potential bone and renal benefits with this compared to the current formulation of tenofovir; non-inferiority of cobicistat for boosting atazanavir compared to ritonavir; an update on the pipeline NNRTI doravirine; a post-hoc analysis of Stribild in black participants; and tenofovir gel for prevention.

We are grateful to NATAP and include their ICAAC reports on switching from Atripla to Eviplera, which significantly reduced central nervous system toxicity; on the detection of HIV in lung alveolar macrophages; and low US uptake of HCV treatment in a 2008-2013 analysis of the VA cohort in Washington.

Reports from AIDS 2014 cover the PROUD study of oral PrEP – with discussion about access to Truvada for PrEP in the UK and Europe; high baseline rates of COPD in a substudy of the START trial; the risk of cardiovascular disease or type-2 diabetes according to change in BMI after starting ART; and loss to follow up in the Malawi Option B+ programme – which needs some improvement.

Recent new ARV approvals are: the new FDC of dolutegravir plus abacavir and 3TC; cobicistat and elvitegravir as single agents in the US and a positive opinion for co-formulated darunavir/cobicistat in Europe. For hepatitis C treatment, daclatasvir was approved in Europe for genotypes 1-4 and the CHMP gave a positive opinion to approve co-formulated sofosbuvir/ledipasvir.

Other antiretroviral news includes data on raltegravir in pregnancy and for infants; efavirenz PK in pregnancy and in the presence of rifampicin for TB treatment and a report showing kidney signal trouble worsens over 5 years in a Japanese cohort receiving tenofovir.

Gareth Hardy reviews two important journal papers: one reporting little clinical impact from HIV reinfection (so long as drug resistance is not an issue) and a second reporting an experimental approach to treating PML that may be applicable for HIV positive people.

And Richard Jefferys once again updates us on basic science and cure research.

Full contents.

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