Review of the impact of NNRTI-based HIV treatment regimens on patient-reported disease burden

PRO-Act: a healthcare provider workshop outlining the added value of implementing PROs in routine HIV practice

Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) are an evidenced way of adding value to routine clinical care. As a source of unique information on the effect of a medical condition and its treatment from the patients' perspective (Mercieca-Bebber et al. in Patient Relat Outcome Meas 9: 353-367, https://doi.org/10.2147/PROM.S156279 , 2018), PROs allow for an improved assessment in routine clinical care of symptoms, side effects, functional outcomes (physical, sexual, social, emotional, cognitive functioning), and health-related quality of life (HRQoL). By helping to align healthcare providers' interventions with what matters most to the patient, PROs contribute to the individualized choice of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (Carfora et al. in PLoS ONE 17(4): e0267030, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267030 , 2022) as a paramount component of tailored and person-centred care management, in routine clinical practice. This article outlines a practical framework and process tested in Portugal to raise awareness of PROs' added value, and to help guide first steps in the implementation and seamless integration of PROs, in routine HIV care.

Patient-reported outcomes to enhance person-centred HIV care

Quality of life has been proposed as the fourth 90 to complement the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets to monitor the global HIV response, highlighting a need to address the holistic needs of people living with HIV beyond viral suppression. This proposal has instigated a wider discussion about the use of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) to improve the treatment and care of an ageing HIV population with increasing comorbidities and a disproportionate burden of social problems. PROs can provide a first-hand assessment of the impact of HIV treatment and care on patients' quality of life, including symptoms. The field of PRO measures is rapidly expanding but still no gold standard exists, raising concerns about tool selection. Challenges also remain in the collection, interpretation, and use of PRO data to improve the performance of the health system. An emerging concern is how to adapt PROs to different sociocultural and geographical settings.

On restricted optimal treatment regime estimation for competing risks data

It is well accepted that individualized treatment regimes may improve the clinical outcomes of interest. However, positive treatment effects are often accompanied by certain side effects. Therefore, when choosing the optimal treatment regime for a patient, we need to consider both efficacy and safety issues. In this article, we propose to model time to a primary event of interest and time to severe side effects of treatment by a competing risks model and define a restricted optimal treatment regime based on cumulative incidence functions. The estimation approach is derived using a penalized value search method and investigated through extensive simulations. The proposed method is applied to an HIV dataset obtained from Health Sciences South Carolina, where we minimize the risk of treatment or virologic failures while controlling the risk of serious drug-induced side effects.

Patient-Reported Symptoms Over 48 Weeks in a Randomized, Open-Label, Phase IIIb Non-Inferiority Trial of Adults with HIV Switching to Co-Formulated Elvitegravir, Cobicistat, Emtricitabine, and Tenofovir DF versus Continuation of Non-Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor with Emtricitabine and Tenofovir DF

Background

Co-formulated elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine, and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (EVG/COBI/FTC/TDF; Stribild^®) is a guideline-recommended regimen for HIV treatment-naïve patients and a switch option for virologically suppressed patients.

Objective

The purpose of this analysis was to understand how HIV patients’ symptoms change after switching to Stribild^® versus continuing a regimen consisting of a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) with emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate.

Methods

A secondary analysis was conducted of the STRATEGY-NNRTI study (GS-US-236-0121), a randomized, open-label, phase IIIb trial of HIV-infected adults who were taking an NNRTI plus FTC/TDF and were randomly assigned (2:1) either to Stribild^® (‘switch’) or to continue on their existing regimen (‘no-switch’). Logistic regressions and longitudinal modeling were conducted to evaluate the relationship of treatment with bothersome symptoms. These models adjusted for age, sex, race, number of bothersome symptoms at baseline, Veterans Aging Cohort Study Risk (VACS) Index score, years since HIV diagnosis, and first antiretroviral therapy use, NNRTI type, serious mental illness, and baseline depression and health-related quality of life (HRQL) scores.

Results

At baseline, the prevalence of nightmares, vivid dreams, weird/intense dreams, muscle aches/joint pain, and fevers/chills/sweats was greater in the switch group. The prevalence of nightmare, vivid dreams, weird/intense dreams, dizzy/lightheadedness, fatigue/loss of energy, and pain/numbness/tingling in hands/feet deceased in the switch group at week 4, and these benefits were maintained over time. Nervous/anxious, drowsiness, trouble remembering, off balance, and body changes decreased in the switch group at week 4 but were not maintained over time. Difficulty sleeping, diarrhea/loose bowels, and bloating did not differ in prevalence at week 4 or 48, but longitudinal models suggested differences between groups over time. HRQL did not differ between groups and was unchanged over time.

Conclusions

In this study sample, a switch to co-formulated EVG/COBI/FTC/TDF was associated with significant persistent improvements in six patient-reported HIV symptoms.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40271-015-0129-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.