Profile of antiretroviral agents use in Colombia

Introduction: Since the beginning of the epidemic, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has taken more than 36 million lives. Objective: To determine the antiretroviral drug prescription patterns in a population of individuals with HIV infection in Colombia. Materials and methods: Cross-sectional stud...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biomédica
Main Authors: Jorge E. Machado-Alba, Miguel A. Atehortua-Otero, Diego A. Cortés-Mejía
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Spanish
Published: Instituto Nacional de Salud 2018
Subjects:
R
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.7705/biomedica.v38i4.3885
https://doaj.org/article/02f8b26f25b04fa3858eaa6f6fd55a80
Description
Summary:Introduction: Since the beginning of the epidemic, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has taken more than 36 million lives. Objective: To determine the antiretroviral drug prescription patterns in a population of individuals with HIV infection in Colombia. Materials and methods: Cross-sectional study analyzing the profiles of patients treated with antiretroviral drugs between April 1st and September 30th, 2015. The sociodemographic, pharmacological, and comorbidity variables were identified. Individuals with a positive diagnosis of HIV of all ages and both genders were included. Results: We found 641 patients with a mean age of 39.0±17 years who were predominantly male (60.2%). The most used medications were lamivudine-zidovudine (51.6%), lopinavir-ritonavir (36%) and efavirenz (24.5%). The combination of lamivudine-zidovudine plus lopinavir-ritonavir was the most prescribed regimen (29.5%), but a total of 80 different regimens was identified. Being an adult between the ages of 45-64 years (OR=2.25; 95%CI 1.367-3.713) was associated with a greater probability of receiving 4 or more antiretrovirals. A total of 267 (41.6%) patients used at least one comedication (range: 1-18 drugs), especially anti-ulcer (57.3%), lipid-lowering (28.8%) and anti-hypertensive (28.5%) drugs. Conclusions: Patients undergoing antiretroviral treatment are receiving medications with elevated intrinsic values at the recommended doses and present comorbidities associated with chronic agerelated conditions. However, these patients receive a great variety of regimens that are not included in the clinical practice guidelines.