August 1, 2012
Several studies presented new information on other aspects of HIV treatment.
The CCR5 inhibitor maraviroc was initially studied in combination with two other active drugs. However, because some boosted protease inhibitors increase the drug levels of maraviroc so that only half the recommended dose is needed, some researchers used this as the basis for a new combination.
Unfortunately, the percentage of people with undetectable viral load looked worse compared to a three-drug combination (68% vs 82% with maraviroc plus tenofovir/FTC). New studies are now using darunavir/ritonavir with maraviroc to see if this can be improved.
A French study reported that atazanavir was associated with development of gallstones.
Although this is the first report, the link seemed fairly convincing as analysis of the stones showed that they largely contained atazanavir. However many of these cases generally had other pre-existing liver complications, including hepatitis C.
Atazanavir has also been reported to cause kidney stones.
Several studies reported longer-term (five year) results using raltegravir. Of note, after four years raltegravir became significantly better than efavirenz (both also used with tenofovir/FTC). This was largely driven by more people stopping efavirenz due to side effects.
A study at a workshop prior to the main conference also reported that markers of muscle toxicity were higher in people using raltegravir (or reporting recent exercise) compared to people not using raltegravir.
The changes were all generally mild and no cases of serious muscle toxicity were reported. However, a more serious form of muscle toxicity called rhabdomyolysis has been reported with raltegravir, so this might be an early signal to watch.
One study proposed a new mechanism for why medical male circumcision reduces the risk for a man to catch HIV.
Previously this was thought to be due to a thinner keratin layer (of sort of tissue padding) in the inner foreskin.
The new study suggested that the route for infection is through the sensitive membrane of the head of the penis. Uncircumcised men were found to have a higher percentage of cells nearer to the skin surface, that HIV needs to find for infection to take hold.
Unless stated otherwise, all references are to the Programme and Abstracts of the 19th International AIDS Society World AIDS Conference, 2225 July 2012, Washington DC. http://www.aids2012.org.