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Near-perfect adherence to oral pre-exposure prophylaxis – taking HIV drugs to prevent HIV – may be achievable in the right settings, the eighteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections heard yesterday.
Participants from the US sites of the international iPrEx study of tenofovir/FTC (Truvada) pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in men who have sex with men and transsexual women had near-perfect adherence, compared with 50% adherence from other sites, new data presented at the conference shows.
Analysis also found that adherence in men who had the highest risk of acquiring HIV, by having unprotected receptive anal sex, was, at 76%, far higher than those at lower risk, so participants were tempering their pill-taking to their perceived risk.
Another substudy has found that taking Truvada resulted in a small but significant loss in bone mineral density in participants. But it also found that participants’ bone mineral density at the start of the study was considerably lower than would have been expected in men their age.
Resistance tests uncovered no drug resistance in men who seroconverted (became infected with HIV) on the trial, but did find that one participant who took placebo had a small amount of virus with the K65R resistance mutation to tenofovir.
At a discussion forum on iPrEx and on the CAPRISA 004 microbicide trial, lead investigator Bob Grant announced that the US Food and Drug Administration had agreed that the iPrEx trial findings were sufficient for the FDA to move ahead and consider changing the indication for Truvada to include using it to prevent HIV.
PrEP, as a result, might be approved in the US by the end of this year.