For many people, it's hard to remember to take a pill every day. For people being treated for HIV, however, the prospect of taking medication only once a day seems almost too good to be true.
HIV regimens are often highly choreographed, requiring that people take many different pills at different times of the day. And missing even one dose can compromise the effectiveness of therapy. So not only would a less complicated medication regimen make life easier, it could be lifesaving.
Thanks to new research, HIV regimens have become simpler in recent years, and now some patients are candidates for once-a-day HIV therapy. Below, Dr. Brian A. Boyle, an associate professor at Cornell University Medical College in New York City, discusses the shift from complex regimens to once-daily therapy.
Why was it important to develop once-a-day dosing?
It is very difficult for patients to take medications on a religious basis like they have to with HIV therapy. The regimens doctors used to give patients could be extraordinarily complicated. For example, one pill needs to be taken on an empty stomach, but it can't be taken with another pill that also needs to be taken on an empty stomach, because the two would interact with each other. And then there are other pills that have to be taken separately on a full stomach.
So, for some of these regimens, patients needed a computer algorithm to keep track of when they were supposed to take their medications.
Copyright 2009 NBC Health
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