[Evaluating the therapeutic care of HIV infection in Tunisia].
OBJECTIVE
Our aim is to determine different therapeutic response profiles in Tunisian HIV-1 infected patients, to identify those with therapeutic failure and to compare the results of the genotypic resistance test used in Tunisia (INNO LiPA Test) with those of automatic sequencing to evaluate its efficacy.


METHODS
The retrospective survey concerns 392 infected patients enrolled from January 2001 to December 2006. Evaluation of HIV INNO LiPA test was performed by comparing these test results with those of automatic sequencing in 36 plasmatic samples for 13 infected patients with therapeutic failure.


RESULTS
on the basis of the HIV viral load evolution, 57.55% of patients present a good therapeutic response and 42.44% a bad one. Patients with therapeutic failure require genotypic resistance test. A comparison of HIV INNO LiPA test and direct sequencing showed a strong concordance between the two tests results either for reverse transcriptase gene or protease gene. However, the results obtained by INNO LiPA test (8.79% of analysed codons ) and the limited number of analysed codons were the defaults of INNO LiPA technique.


CONCLUSIONS
the contribution of INNO LiPA technique in the knowledge of the epidemiological HIV resistance profiles of virus strains of HIV infected individuals failing therapy was considerable. However, due to INNO LiPA technique limitations, sequence analysis must be considered a more complete assay for the monitoring of antiretroviral resistance of HIV infected patients.
Jlizi
Asma
A
Laboratoire de Microbiologie, Hôpital Charles Nicolle, Tunis, Tunisie.
Slim
Amine
A
Benammar Elgaaied
Amel
A
Ben Rejab
Saida
S
Ben Chaabane
Taoufik
T
Letaief-Omezzine
Amel
A
Chakroun
Mohamed
M
Garbouj
Mounira
M
D000328:Adult; D019380:Anti-HIV Agents / Q000494:pharmacology* / Q000627:therapeutic use; D023241:Antiretroviral Therapy, Highly Active; D024882:Drug Resistance, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000821:virology; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017211:Treatment Failure; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014416:Tunisia; D019562:Viral Load
D019380:Anti-HIV Agents; D011933:Reagent Kits, Diagnostic