Lamivudine monotherapy as a holding regimen for HIV-positive children

In resource-limited settings holding regimens, such as lamivudine monotherapy (LM), are used to manage HIV-positive children failing combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) to mitigate the risk of drug resistance developing, whilst adherence barriers are addressed or when access to second- or third-line regimens is restricted. We aimed to investigate characteristics of children placed on LM and their outcomes. We describe the characteristics of children (age 90 days we describe their immunologic outcomes on LM and their immunologic and virologic outcomes after resuming cART. We included 228 children in our study. At LM start their median age was 12.0 years (IQR 7.3-14.6), duration on cART was 3.6 years (IQR 2.0-5.9) and median CD4 count was 605.5 cells/μL (IQR 427-901). Whilst 110 (48%) had no prior protease inhibitor (PI)-exposure, of the 69 with recorded PI-exposure, 9 (13%) patients had documented resistance to all PIs. After 6 months on LM, 70% (94/135) experienced a drop in CD4, with a predicted average CD4 decline of 46.5 cells/μL (95% CI 37.7-55.4). Whilst on LM, 46% experienced a drop in CD4 to