Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences
 

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EFFECTIVENESS AND SAFETY OF SALVAGE THERAPY ON ROMANIAN HIV INFECTED PATIENTS

MANUELA ARBUNE1, COSTINELA GEORGESCU2*, MAGDALENA CUCIUREANU3, MICHAELA DOBRE4

1Clinical Department, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, „Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati, 35, Al. I Cuza Street, Galati, Romania
2 Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, „Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati, 35, Al. I Cuza Street, Galati, Romania
3 Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, "Gr. T. Popa" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 16, Universitatii Street, Iasi, Romania
4 Department of Functional Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, „Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati, 35, Al. I Cuza Street, Galati, Romania

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Long life antiretroviral treatment (ART) is crucial for surviving of patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but the efficacy and durability of this therapy is compromised by the emerging of drug resistance. Patients with more than two therapy failure are difficult to treat because of frequent drugs cross-resistance. Salvage therapy supposes new agents with different mechanisms of viral action or with improved pharmacological characteristics and represents a viable treatment option after multiple therapeutic failures. A prospective observational study was conducted on a group of 13 heavily experienced HIV Romanian young adults who were treated with raltegravir, etravirine and ritonavir boosted darunavir for 96 weeks. The average gain of LCD4 (log cluster of differentiation 4 count) was 261/mm3 and full viral replication suppression was achieved in 8 out of 10 patients. In conclusion, our results show that the use of salvage ART is considered efficient and safe.