Assessing efficacy of different nucleos(t)ide backbones in NNRTI-containing regimens in the Swiss HIV Cohort Study. Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy
Yang et al. compared different nucleos(t)ide backbones in NNRTI-containing regimens regarding virological responses and emergence of NNRTI resistance and evaluated the impact of pill burden and dosing frequency on treatment efficacy. They found that abacavir/lamivudine-, tenofovir/lamivudine- and zidovudine/lamivudine-containing regimens had a >2-fold high risk of virological failure (VF) than tenofovir/emtricitabine-containing regimens. Tenofovir/lamivudine was more often associated with emergence of NNRTI resistance than tenofovir/emtricitabine. A high number of pills but no dosing frequency was associated with VF and emergence of NNRTI resistance.
In conclusion, the study-results indicate a superiority of tenofovir/emtricitabine-containing regimens, but do not allow definitive determination of whether this effect is caused by the low pill burden or the substances themselves.