Efficacy and Safety of Three Antiretroviral Regimens for Initial Treatment of HIV-1: A Randomized Clinical Trial in Diverse Multinational Settings

• Main Authors: Thomas B. Campbell, Laura M. Smeaton, N. Kumarasamy, Timothy Flanigan, Karin L. Klingman, Cynthia Firnhaber, Beatriz Grinsztejn, Mina C. Hosseinipour, Johnstone Kumwenda, Umesh Lalloo, Cynthia Riviere, Jorge Sanchez, Marineide Melo, Khuanchai Supparatpinyo, Srikanth Tripathy, Ana I. Martinez, Apsara Nair, Ann Walawander, Laura Moran, Yun Chen, Wendy Snowden, James F. Rooney, Jonathan Uy, Robert T. Schooley, Victor de Gruttola, James Gita Hakim, Edith Swann, Ronald L. Barnett, Barbara Brizz, Yvette Delph, Nikki Gettinger, Ronald T. Mitsuyasu, Susan Eshleman, Steven Safren, Susan A. Fiscus, Adriana Andrade, David W. Haas, Farida Amod, Vladimir Berthaud, Robert C. Bollinger, Yvonne Bryson, David Celentano, David Chilongozi, Myron Cohen, Ann C. Collier, Judith Silverstein Currier, Susan Cu-Uvin, Joseph Eron, Charles Flexner, Joel E. Gallant, Roy M. Gulick, Scott M. Hammer, Irving Hoffman, Peter Kazembe, Newton Kumwenda, Javier R. Lama, Jody Lawrence, Chiedza Maponga, Francis Martinson, Kenneth Mayer, Karin Nielsen, Richard B. Pendame, Bharat Ramratnam, Ian Sanne, Patrice Severe, Thira Sirisanthana, Suniti Solomon, Steve Tabet, Taha Taha, Charles van der Horst, Christine Wanke, Joan Gormley, Cheryl J. Marcus, Beverly Putnam, Smanga Ntshele, Edde Loeliger, Keith A. Pappa, Nancy Webb, David L. Shugarts, Mark A. Winters, Renard S. Descallar, Joseph Steele, Michael Wulfsohn, Farideh Said, Yue Chen, John C. Martin, Norbert Bischofberger, Andrew Cheng, Howard Jaffe, Jabin Sharma, S. Poongulali, Sandra Wagner Cardoso, Deise Lucia Faria, Sima Berendes, Kelly Burke, Rosie Mngqibisa, Cecelia Kanyama, Virginia Kayoyo, Wadzanai P. Samaneka, Anthony Chisada
• Format: Journal
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: Medicine
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=84865566725&origin=inward; http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/51864
• Institution: Chiang Mai University

Background:Antiretroviral regimens with simplified dosing and better safety are needed to maximize the efficiency of antiretroviral delivery in resource-limited settings. We investigated the efficacy and safety of antiretroviral regimens with once-daily compared to twice-daily dosing in diverse areas of the world.Methods and Findings:1,571 HIV-1-infected persons (47% women) from nine countries in four continents were assigned with equal probability to open-label antiretroviral therapy with efavirenz plus lamivudine-zidovudine (EFV+3TC-ZDV), atazanavir plus didanosine-EC plus emtricitabine (ATV+DDI+FTC), or efavirenz plus emtricitabine-tenofovir-disoproxil fumarate (DF) (EFV+FTC-TDF). ATV+DDI+FTC and EFV+FTC-TDF were hypothesized to be non-inferior to EFV+3TC-ZDV if the upper one-sided 95% confidence bound for the hazard ratio (HR) was ≤1.35 when 30% of participants had treatment failure.An independent monitoring board recommended stopping study follow-up prior to accumulation of 472 treatment failures. Comparing EFV+FTC-TDF to EFV+3TC-ZDV, during a median 184 wk of follow-up there were 95 treatment failures (18%) among 526 participants versus 98 failures among 519 participants (19%; HR 0.95, 95% CI 0.72-1.27; p = 0.74). Safety endpoints occurred in 243 (46%) participants assigned to EFV+FTC-TDF versus 313 (60%) assigned to EFV+3TC-ZDV (HR 0.64, CI 0.54-0.76; p<0.001) and there was a significant interaction between sex and regimen safety (HR 0.50, CI 0.39-0.64 for women; HR 0.79, CI 0.62-1.00 for men; p = 0.01). Comparing ATV+DDI+FTC to EFV+3TC-ZDV, during a median follow-up of 81 wk there were 108 failures (21%) among 526 participants assigned to ATV+DDI+FTC and 76 (15%) among 519 participants assigned to EFV+3TC-ZDV (HR 1.51, CI 1.12-2.04; p = 0.007).Conclusion: EFV+FTC-TDF had similar high efficacy compared to EFV+3TC-ZDV in this trial population, recruited in diverse multinational settings. Superior safety, especially in HIV-1-infected women, and once-daily dosing of EFV+FTC-TDF are advantageous for use of this regimen for initial treatment of HIV-1 infection in resource-limited countries. ATV+DDI+FTC had inferior efficacy and is not recommended as an initial antiretroviral regimen.Trial Registration:http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00084136. © 2012.