Suboptimal adherence to darunavir/ritonavir has minimal effect on efficacy compared with lopinavir/ritonavir in treatment-naive, HIV-infected patients: 96 week ARTEMIS data

Objectives To examine how treatment adherence differences in ARTEMIS (96 week analysis) affected clinical outcome, and to assess factors impacting adherence. Patients and methods ARTEMIS is a Phase III trial, in HIV-1-infected treatment-naive patients, comparing efficacy and safety of once-daily darunavir/ritonavir (800/100 mg) versus lopinavir/ritonavir (800/200 mg total daily dose), each with a fixed-dose background tenofovir and emtricitabine regimen. Self-reported treatment adherence was assessed using the Modified Medication Adherence Self-Report Inventory (M-MASRI). In post-hoc analyses, mean adherence from weeks 4–96 was used to assess overall adherence for each patient, and transformed into a binary variable (>95% , adherent; ≤95% , suboptimally adherent). Results Overall adherence was high: 83% of darunavir/ritonavir-treated patients and 78% of lopinavir/ritonavir-treated patients were >95% adherent. The difference in virological response rate for adherent versus suboptimally adherent patients was smaller for darunavir/ritonavir (6% difference: 82% versus 76%, P = 0.3312) than for lopinavir/ritonavir (25% difference: 78% versus 53%, P