• A Retrospective Cohort Study of the Durability of Antiretroviral Therapy Using Nevirapine versus Antiretroviral Therapy Using Protease Inhibitors (Poster 693)
  Authored by S.J. Bersoff-Matcha, Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States, Washington, DC; S.J. Mcconkey, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO; S.S. Min, D.A. Wohl, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC; D. Merrill, Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic States, Washington, DC; A. Tilley, Linda M. Mundy, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO

This study addresses the issue of durability of treatment in suppressing virus in a real-life setting. While it is real life, it is a retrospective non-randomized sample so there may be inherent bias in the way patients were assigned either a nevirapine or a protease inhibitor regimen. Regardless, it is helpful data. The time to 50% of the regimens failing was 1.9 years. There was no difference between nevirapine-based or protease inhibitor-based regimens in time to failure and there was no difference in a whole host of other variables. The only significant difference was gender. Female gender was associated with longer durability than male gender, once again demonstrating the superior health of women. No reason was given for this, nor was adherence time on drugs, etc. examined. However, in light of past reports of women fairing more poorly, this is welcome news.