Statement of Need

HIV/AIDS continues to be a significant health problem in the United States and worldwide. More than 1 million people in the United States are living with HIV/AIDS, and each year 40,000 new cases of HIV are diagnosed.¹ Patients are now living longer because of treatment advances; however, treatment is lifelong. Combination therapy is likely to remain the gold standard for the treatment of HIV and AIDS.² Combination therapy with nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors plus protease inhibitors (PIs) significantly improves the prognosis in patients with HIV.³ To help increase adherence in these patients, potent well-tolerated highly active antiretroviral (HAART) regimens have been developed, including once-daily PI-based regimens that have minimal impact on quality of life. Extensive data are available on antiretroviral drug regimens, including once-daily PIs, and treatment issues are complex. Therefore, physicians and healthcare providers need to be educated about the benefits and limitations of once-daily PI-based HAART, the pharmacokinetics of once-daily dosing, and all factors critical in selecting a once-daily PI-based HAART regimen.

¹ www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm#hivest. Accessed February 22, 2006.
² De Clercq E. Expert Opin Emerg Drugs. 2006;10:241-273.
³ Sax PE, Gathe JC Jr. AIDS Patient Care STDS. 2006;19:563-576.