Over-the-counter medicines, meals dietary supplements, and different medicine could work together with antiretroviral remedy (ART) in individuals dwelling with HIV and be dangerous, an industry-sponsored medical survey from Denmark stories.
“Our examine confirms that polypharmacy and being on a protease inhibitor-based routine improve the chance of potential drug-drug interactions (PDDIs) significantly and highlights the significance of questioning individuals dwelling with HIV (PLWH) about dietary complement consumption,” the authors, led by Michaela Tinggaard, MD, Copenhagen College Hospital, write in HIV Medication.
“Potential drug-drug interactions have been widespread amongst our examine inhabitants. Though the medical significance of nearly all of the recognized PDDIs could also be low, most of them have been avoidable by means of a change or discontinuation of the comedication, a change in ART or by spacing medicine,” they add.
Senior creator Thomas Benfield, MD, DTMH, DMSc, a professor of infectious ailments on the College of Copenhagen, and colleagues collected info on prescription remedy, over-the-counter remedy, and dietary dietary supplements from adults dwelling with HIV who acquired ART from two outpatient clinics.
The researchers estimated the prevalence of non-HIV comedications, they usually used the College of Liverpool HIV Drug Interactions database to determine potential drug-drug interactions. They evaluated PDDIs and used logistic regression fashions to research hyperlinks between PDDIs and related variables.
The examine included 337 individuals dwelling with HIV receiving ART. The median age was 53 years, 77% of them have been male, and 96% have been virally suppressed, with HIV-RNA viral load <50 copies/mL.
General, 26% of contributors acquired 5 or extra comedications, and 56% took dietary dietary supplements.
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Within the remedy lists of 52% of sufferers, the authors recognized coadministration of medicine that required dose adjustment or monitoring.
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4.5% of sufferers have been taking medicine that shouldn’t be coadministered.
The researchers detected a number of elements that independently predicted PDDIs:
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male intercourse (odds ratio (OR), 1.9; 95% CI, 1.0 – 3.4)
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being on a protease inhibitor (OR, 4.3; 95% CI, 1.9 – 9.7)
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receiving 5 or extra comedications (OR, 3.3; 95% CI, 1.5 – 7.2)
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taking over-the-counter medicines (OR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.1 – 3.3)
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taking dietary dietary supplements (OR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.2 – 3.3)
Comorbidities and OTC Drugs Enhance in Ageing Folks with HIV
Indira Brar, MD, an infectious ailments senior employees doctor and the medical director of HIV companies at Henry Ford Well being in Detroit, Michigan, referred to as the examine and necessary useful resource for educating suppliers and sufferers about over-the-counter medicine.
“The primary energy of the examine is that it features a first rate variety of getting old sufferers dwelling with HIV, the age group wherein we fear about drug interactions,” she advised Medscape Medical Information in an e-mail.

Dr Indira Brar
“As sufferers grow old, they’ve elevated comorbidities. As comorbidities improve, the variety of medicines will increase. Because the variety of medicines will increase, the drug interactions improve,” stated Brar, who was not concerned within the examine. “Additionally, as sufferers grow old, they have an inclination to take extra over-the-counter medicine.”
Brar defined how drug-drug interactions can hurt sufferers.
“Medication added to a affected person who’s already on ART might lower the extent of the ART and trigger the affected person to develop a drug-resistant HIV an infection,” she stated. “Or the ART the affected person is on can improve the degrees of the brand new medicine which were added, and that might have potential toxicity and unintended effects.
“Meals dietary supplements, together with multivitamins, calcium, and magnesium, are sometimes missed as a result of we expect they’re benign. However these medicine can bind our new antiretrovirals, the integrase inhibitors. They’ll lower their ranges within the affected person and trigger drug-resistant HIV an infection.
“In our clinic, we all the time inform our sufferers to please name us earlier than they take any remedy, so we are able to be sure there isn’t a drug interplay,” Brar stated.
Nan Wang, PharmD, a medical pharmacy specialist at College Hospitals Cleveland Medical Heart in Cleveland, Ohio, famous in an e-mail that drug-drug interactions with ARTs are widespread.

Dr Nan Wang
“Understanding the prevalence of antiretroviral drug interactions in a affected person inhabitants can assist determine sure medicines that require enhanced vigilance and might information our medical interventions,” stated Wang, who was not related to the analysis.
Joseph Alvarnas, MD, a hematologist and oncologist at Metropolis of Hope Complete Most cancers Heart in Duarte, California, stated that that is “a methodologically sound and well-designed examine that is a well timed, necessary reminder that suppliers want to think twice and comprehensively when caring for his or her sufferers dwelling with HIV.”
Alvarnas, who was not concerned within the examine, stated that, with the widespread availability of ART, HIV has turn out to be a persistent, manageable situation in an getting old inhabitants.

Dr Joseph Alvarnas
“ART brokers, notably the ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitors, improve the probability of sufferers having a probably vital drug-drug interplay with one in every of their persistent care medicines,” he added. “Even seemingly low-risk dietary supplements akin to multivitamins could end in a detrimental influence upon efficient ART remedy of PLWH.”
“The important subsequent step is that these findings are built-in rigorously into decision-support techniques, digital well being report prescribing techniques, and pharmacy safety-check techniques to make sure that we cut back the chance of affected person hurt,” Alvarnas suggested.
Benfield and several other examine co-authors report monetary relationships with GlaxoSmithKline and different pharmaceutical corporations. Different co-authors, in addition to Alvarnas, Brar, and Wang, report no related monetary relationships. The examine was supported by GlaxoSmithKline.
HIV Med. Printed on-line Might 6, 2022. Summary
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