Hi<\/p>\n
Your doctor is probably talking about the PIVOT study which is now running in the UK.<\/p>\n
We posted information about this study on the i-Base website here<\/a>. It is being run by the MRC (Medical Research Council) who also have information on their site here.<\/a><\/p>\n It looks like an interesting and safe study to enroll in. The advantages include the possibility that once your viral load is undetectable for six months (reduced to less than 50 copies\/mL) you may not need to use the nucleoside drugs in your combination (tenovovir and FTC in Truvada).<\/p>\n Cutting back to just atazanavir\/ritonavir (Reyataz\/Norvir) does not seem potent enough, but there are several studies that show darunavir\/ritonavir may be fine. Importantly, one recent study<\/a> reported that darunavir will work in other important body compartments (like your brain) which has been a concern with some other boosted-PI combinations.<\/p>\n People are carefully monitored in PIVOT, so that if your viral load does blip up on the study, you could add back the nucleosides (ie Truvada) and it would drop back down again.<\/p>\n Two studies-Monet<\/a> and MONOI-ANRS<\/a> that looked into the efficacy of darunavir monotherapy.<\/p>\n Both they showed a fairly good result of darunavir monotherapy-at least non-inferior compared to triple combination, and that viral load was quickly re-suppressed in the few people where it ‘blipped’ higher.<\/p>\n