Single-Tablet HIV Treatment Shows Better Outcomes Among Veterans

Recent research in AIDS Care found that VA patients with HIV had better treatment retention and viral suppression when taking a single-tablet regimen compared with a multi-tablet regimen.

Thomas Peter Giordano, MD, MPH, of the Clinical Epidemiology and Comparative Effectiveness Program at Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness, and Safety at the Michael E DeBakey VA Medical Center, and colleagues studied how a single-tablet regimen for HIV treatment preformed among a cohort of about 1000 veterans with HIV. According to a press release, more than 28,000 veterans receive care for HIV each year.

“Newer HIV regimens are typically taken once daily but vary in the number of pills required,” Dr Giordano and colleagues wrote. “Whether the number of pills in a once-daily HIV regimen affects clinical outcomes is unknown.”

The researchers compared adherence, retention in care, and virologic outcomes for 622 patients taking a single-tablet HIV treatment regimen with outcomes for 406 patients taking a multiple-tablet regimen. Both regimens were tenofovir-based, with the single tablet regimen containing non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and the multi-tablet regimen containing boosted protease inhibitors.

Study results showed that after 1 year, patients in the single-tablet regimen had better outcomes in retention in care and virologic suppression. Retention in care was 80.7% in the single-tablet group vs 72.7% in the multi-tablet group. Likewise, virologic suppression was 84.4% in the single-tablet group compared with 72.7% in the multi-tablet group.

The researchers also found that the proportion of patients who achieved 80% adherence was not significantly different between the single-tablet group and the multi-tablet group—indicating that results are not linked to better adherence.

“There were not differences in adherence as we could measure it via pharmacy refill dates, which suggests that maybe the single-tablet regimens are more efficacious,” Dr Giordano said in a press release. “It could also be that the persons who got the multi-tablet regimens had more barriers to care and that is why they did more poorly.”

—David Costill

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