Combined therapy with saquinavir, ritonavir and stavudine in moderately to severely immunosuppressed HIV‐infected protease inhibitor‐naive patients

1 Basel Centre for HIV Research, Outpatient Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Basel, 2 Department of Internal Medicine, Cantonal Hospital St Gallen, 3 Department of Internal Medicine, Regional Hospital Lugano, 4 Division of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology, University Hospital Zurich, 5 Basel Centre for HIV Research, Institute for Medical Microbiology, University Basel, 6 Division of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Bern, 7 Division of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Lausanne, 8 Roche Pharma AG, Reinach, and 9 Division of Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Geneva, Switzerland Objective To assess the short‐term and long‐term effect of a combination of saquinavir, ritonavir and stavudine in moderately to severely immunosuppressed protease inhibitor‐naive patients. Design Prospective open‐label multicentre study. Patients and Methods A total of 64 protease inhibitor‐naive and stavudine‐naive HIV‐infected patients with a CD4 count of 10 000 HIV‐1 RNA copies/mL received saquinavir hard‐gelatin capsules, ritonavir and stavudine. Full (drop in viraemia of > 2 log10 and/or