The continuous pharmacological advances in antiretroviral treatment (ART) and the increasing understanding of HIV drug resistance has led to a change in the paradigm of ART optimization in the setting of the viral suppression of treatment-experienced patients with the emerging evidence of the effectiveness and safety of dual therapies. The aim of this study is to determine the antiviral efficacy and safety of switching to Dolutegravir + Lamivudine in people living with HIV, and to analyze the rate of patients with virologic failure (VF). A total of 200 patients were included with a median age of 51 years, 189 cells/µL of nadir CD4+, 13 years on ART and four previous ART regimens. Among the 168 patients who completed a follow-up at 48 weeks, a total of five VFs occurred, resulting in a 2.98% (5/168) VF rate. The results of the intention-to-treat analysis were a VF rate of 2.54% (5/197), and the rate of patients/year with viral suppression was 98.3% (298/303) in the observed data analysis. We observed a significant improvement in mean CD4 lymphocytes, the CD4/CD8 ratio and lipid profiles. The optimization of ART to DTG plus 3TC is a cost-effective switch option for treatment-experienced HIV patients, and also improves their lipid profiles.
Keywords: ART; HIV; cost-effective; dolutegravir; lamivudine; simplification.