SSAT057: Targeted clinical strategies and LLV in bPI therapy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
SSAT057 - Targeted clinical strategies and low abundance HIV viraemia in boosted PI therapy: an observational study
IRAS ID
157882
Contact name
Marta Boffito
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
St Stephen's AIDS Trust
Research summary
The purpose of the study is to look at possible reasons why some HIV positive people who take their drugs properly and have no resistance to these drugs, still have low amounts of virus detectable in their blood. This is known as Low Level Viraemia (LLV).
When low levels of HIV virus are present, some can mutate and make the drugs less effective (i.e. some variants of the virus become more resistant). Currently, however, these resistance mutations may be difficult to detect using standard tests for resistance because the amount of virus in the blood is very low and the standard tests aren’t sensitive enough to pick up the mutations.
We will use more sensitive mutation detection methods, known as Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), to look at whether see if there are any low levels of drug resistant HIV virus developing in the blood when LLV occurs. We will look at the different treatment strategies that are used in routine standard practice when LLV is detected and evaluate which is most effective in preventing development of resistance.
We hope this research will help to inform guidelines on the best way to treat HIV in the future.
REC name
London - Westminster Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/LO/1181
Date of REC Opinion
28 Aug 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion