Treatment guidelines

25 August 2021. Related: Professionals, Resources.

There are many national and international guidelines. These cover all aspects of how to manage and treat HIV and related complications.

Most guidelines outline best practice and minimum standards of care. They are developed from evidence-based medicine. They should also comment on new issues where the evidence is less clear. This will depend on expert opinion. It also depends on interpreting studies that report conflicting results.

Guidelines are only as accurate as the available research. This makes it important to check when they were written or last updated. Please always check the date they were produced and when they are due to be updated.

The treatmentguideline.com site has a good range of international HIV guidelines.

UK guidelines by BHIVA

The British HIV Association (BHIVA) publish more than 15 current national guidelines.

They also covering treatment and monitoring, including for complications (hepatitis, TG, cancer). They also cover prevention (PEP and PrEP). They are all available free from the BHIVA website. Three are listed below.

Routine investigation and monitoring of adult HIV-1-positive individuals (2016) (2019 interim update)
Treatment of HIV-1-positive adults with antiretroviral therapy (2015) (2016 interim update)
Management of HIV in pregnancy and postpartum (2018) (2020 third interim update) These guidelines focus on the health of both the mother and baby before, during and after pregnancy, including conception, use of HIV treatment, choices for delivery and feeding after the baby is born.

BHIVA also publish position statements on aspects of HIV.

The BHIVA website includes a section for archive guidelines.

UK guidelines by other organisations

Updated guidance on occupational HIV post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) from the UK Chief Medical Officers’ Expert Advisory Group on AIDS (EAGA)

European guidelines (EACS)

The European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) produces guidelines on five aspects of HIV management.

Routine assessment and monitoring
ARV treatment
Management of complications both from HIV and side effects from ARVs
Co-infection with HBV and/or HCV
Opportunistic Infections (OIs)

The October 2020 guidelines (version 10.1) are published as a single booklet PDF file.

The full guidelines are also online, including important resources and tables that were not included in the print version.

Translations are available, including in French, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Turkish.

PENTA guidelines

The Paediatric Network for Treatment of AIDS (PENTA-ID) produce guidelines for antitretrovial treatment in children.

US guidelines (DHHS)

The US National Institute for Health (NIH) Department of Health and Human Sciences (DHHS) produce the following national guidelines for HIV. Regular updates (at least twice a year) and changes to previous versions are very helpfully highlighted.

World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines

The WHO produces over 40 guidelines on different aspects of HIV treatment, testing and care.

Link to the WHO guidelines page.

The most recent guidelines on HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care for key populations was in July 2016.