ASHM Report Back
Clinical posts from members and guests of the Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (ASHM) from various international medical and scientific conferences on HIV, AIDS, viral hepatitis, and sexual health.
The future of HIV therapy
So having digested all the scrumptious brain teasing morsels at yesterday’s info picnic what was on the menu for Day 2 at #EACS2017?
To begin the day Dr Roy Gulick, Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Weill Medical College of Cornell University (also see Mark Ryan’s post) presented the Future of HIV Therapy. He began by summarising approved ART first line regimens in 2017 and the world-wide opinion to start at all CD4 counts whenever the patient is ready. He discussed the developments of ART properties in terms of
1) Antiretroviral activity - mentioning the future of two new classes of drugs HIV Maturation Inhibitors and HIV Capsid Inhibitors,
2) Safety and tolerability- giving TDF -> TAF switch as an example of similar viralogical efficacy but improvements in renal and bone markers.
3) Convenience- recapping the history of ART with many daily pills to the current single tablet regimes and then the possibilities in the future of new co-formulations with longer half-lives lending themselves of less frequent dosing, and long acting methods in the form of injectables and subdermal implants.
4) Access and Cost – Highlighting the numbers of people living with HIV globally and improvements in those accessing treatment as the cost of ARV’s decreases.
5) Life expectancy as those with HIV live longer and healthier lives and in closing stated “possibly longer than the general population … apparently getting healthier is good for you”