A report on Catia Marzolini's presentation "The top 10 DDIs in day-to-day clinical management of HIV"
In this session Catia Marzolini from the Division of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology, University Hospital Basel, Switzerland gave a presentation titled ‘The top 10 DDIs in day-to-day clinical management of HIV’.
It is well known that HIV-infected patients may be at risk of a clinically significant drug-drug interaction (DDI), since antiretroviral drugs are recognised to be amongst the therapeutic agents with the highest potential for DDIs. In this session, the drug-drug interaction potential of antiretroviral drugs was discussed with interactions occurring at drug metabolism, drug excretion or drug absorption. The common mechanisms identified for these interactions were inhibition or induction of drug metabolising enzymes or drug transporters as well as chelation with polyvalent actions or pH-dependent changes in drug absorption. The antiretroviral agents were categorised into either victim drugs or perpetrator drugs, with some agents acting as both victims and perpetrators.
A report on Chloe Orkin's presentation in the session "Challenging Cases in HIV Prevention and Management in collaboration with the International Antiviral Society-USA (IAS-USA)"
A session regarding initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) was presented by Chloe Orkin from Barts Health NHS Trust and Queen Mary University of London, London, UK. Chloe Orkin is also the current Chair of the British HIV Association (BHIVA). The presentation was titled ‘Case 2: ART – initiating treatment’ in a section of the conference called ‘Challenging Cases in HIV Prevention and Management’ in collaboration with the International Antiviral Society-USA (IAS-USA).
In this presentation Chloe Orkin presented 3 cases of first line ART – What to start, Rapid ART and ART in pregnancy. For this post I have elected to concentrate on the ‘What to Start’ section of this presentation.
A report on Alexandra Calmy's presentation "New ARV drugs and strategies"
In this session Alexandra Calmy from the HIV/AIDS Unit, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland delivered a presentation titled ‘New ARV drugs and strategies’ in the final Late Breakers/Hot Topics section of the Conference.
Alexandra Calmy covered a significant amount of information in this session, commencing with drugs in the pipeline. She discussed the issue that the global need for better HIV treatment means that data to inform their use in all settings are needed. Here she made reference to the gaps in data for the use of dolutegravir in certain clinical situations.
Another issue presented was the two safety alerts related to the use of antiretrovirals during pregnancy in 2018. The first being the risk of birth defects in babies born to women taking dolutegravir, and the second the new contraindication against using darunavir/cobicistat during pregnancy due to the significantly reduced plasma levels of darunavir and cobicistat during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.
