title: Advances in antiretroviral therapy.
abstract: The 14th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections provided a forum for presentation of state-of-the-art research on antiretroviral therapy. This year's conference marked the first public presentation of phase III trials of the lead compounds in 2 new drug classes: maraviroc (a CCR5 inhibitor) and raltegravir (an HIV-1 integrase inhibitor). These agents are likely to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration this year and should provide major new options for treatment-experienced patients with multidrug resistant virus. Other dominant themes of the conference were the impressive number of presentations describing outcomes of antiretroviral therapy programs in resource-limited settings and new information on mechanisms of drug resistance. Among the latter, the importance of drug resistance mutations occurring in the RNase H and connection domains of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase was of special note. In addition, substantial new information was presented on other new antiretroviral agents, studies in treatment-naive patients, antiretroviral therapy strategies, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, predictors of clinical response to therapy, and antiretroviral pharmacokinetics. Research in antiretroviral therapy remains dynamic and advances in the field continue to improve our ability to maintain long-term control of HIV-1 replication in infected persons.
authors.affiliation: Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Joyce
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Wilkin
authors.forename: Scott M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Hammer
mesh_terms: D019380:Anti-HIV Agents / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D024882:Drug Resistance, Viral; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy*; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000187:drug effects*; D006801:Humans; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D019380:Anti-HIV Agents