HIV/HBV co-infection and rate of antiretroviral treatment change after highly active antiretroviral treatment initiation in a cohort of HIV-infected patients in Greece

The current study investigated the impact of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/hepatitis B virus (HBV) co-infection on the rate of change of antiretroviral drugs after the initiation of highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART). The data on 1425 HIV-positive patients with recorded serology for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) were retrospectively analysed. The estimated rate of treatment change was slightly higher in the HBsAg-positive group (0.57 per year) compared with the HBsAg-negative group (0.50 per year). Although this difference was insignificant in multivariable modelling, the confidence intervals of the estimates barely included unity. Antiretroviral drug family, calendar period, prior exposure to antiretrovirals and the diagnosis of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome were independently associated with the number of drug alterations. A slight impact of co-infection on the frequency of treatment change after the beginning of HAART cannot be excluded. However, the paucity of studies on this issue necessitates the conduct of further research.

Prevalence of resistance-associated mutations in newly diagnosed HIV-1 patients in Greece

The prevalence of HIV-1 drug resistance mutations in naïve patients has been previously shown to differ greatly with the geographic origin. The purpose of this study was to prospectively estimate the prevalence of HIV-1 drug resistance in Greece by analyzing a representative sample of newly HIV-1 diagnosed patients, as part of the SPREAD collaborative study. Protease (PR) and partial reverse transcriptase (RT) sequences were determined from 101 newly diagnosed HIV-1 patients, in Greece, during the period September 2002--August 2003, representing one-third of the total newly diagnosed HIV-1 patients in the same time period. The prevalence of HIV-1 drug resistance was estimated according to the IAS-USA mutation table taking into account all mutations in RT and only major mutations in PR region. The overall prevalence of resistance was 9% [95% confidence interval (CI): 4.2--16.2%]. The prevalence of mutations associated with resistance to NRTIs was 5% (95% CI: 1.6--11.2%), for NNRTIs was 4% (95% CI: 1.1--9.8%), while no major resistance mutations were found in PR. No multi-class resistance was detected in the study population. The prevalence of resistant mutations in the recent seroconverters was 22%. For two individuals, there was clear evidence for transmitted resistance based on epidemiological information for a known source of HIV-1 transmission. The prevalence of the HIV-1 non-B subtypes and recombinants was 52%.