Patients who struggle to take daily HIV pills can benefit from long-acting injectable treatments, a new study by researchers at UCSF has found.
The strategy could also help stop the spread of HIV by keeping more patients from being infectious.
In 2021, federal regulators approved the first long-acting antiretroviral (LA-ART) injectable, which is a combination of long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine. But they only approved it for HIV patients who already had their infections under control with pills.
Researchers at UCSF wanted to see if it would work for patients who could not control their infections with pills, whether that was because they had trouble swallowing or remembering, or because they did not have a place to live and faced other life challenges, such as substance use disorder.
So, they gave these patients monthly or bimonthly injections and compared their viral loads to other patients who already had their viral loads controlled with oral medication before starting injectable HIV therapy.
More than 98% of participants in both groups had what’s known as “viral suppression,” or undetectable levels of HIV, after 48 weeks. It is the largest and longest such comparison. The paper appears in JAMA.
‘Transformative’ for people with adherence challenges
The research, which was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, could help stop the spread of HIV, since those who are virally suppressed cannot transmit the virus.
