For HIV-infected, number of daily pills decreasing

(HealthDay)—For HIV-infected patients, the number of pills and doses of antiretrovirals has decreased over the past seven years, according to a study published online Dec. 30 in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics.

María Jesús Hernández Arroyo, from the University Hospital of Salamanca in Spain, and colleagues conducted a seven-year retrospective study of records of 264 HIV-infected patients enrolled in a pharmaceutical care program. The authors examined the number of pills and doses administered and the antiretroviral treatment (ART) adherence rate.

The researchers found that the patients took a mean of 6.2 pills daily in 2005, with 92.9 percent on a twice-a-day (BID) dosage regimen. The number of pills was reduced to 4.1 by 2012, with only 50.9 percent on a BID regimen. There was no significant correlation between the number of daily pills and dose and adherence to ART in any of the analyses.

"There has been a continuous reduction in the number of pills and doses of antiretrovirals taken by individual patients over the last seven years due largely to the introduction of improved treatments and regimens," the authors write. "More daily pills or doses was not associated with worse ART adherence in our pharmaceutical care program."