Antiretroviral drug resistance among drug-naive HIV-infected patients in Korea

Abstract number: 1734_192

Lee S-H., Rheu E-K., Cah D-H., Lee S-J., Rheu H-S., Kim H-H., Cho G-J.

Objectives: The prevalence of HIV drug resistance mutations in durg-naive patients has been shown to differ with geographic origin. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of transmitted antiretroviral drug resistance mutations in drug naive patients in Korea.

Methods: Genotypic resistance was determined by using ViroseqTM Genotyping System in 51 antiretroviral treatment naive HIV-infected patients between March 2005 and September 2006. Transmitted drug resistance was estimated according to the IAS-USA 2006 definition, taking into account only major mutations in protease and all mutations in reverse transcriptase including revertant mutaions at codon 215.

Results: The median age was 42 years and 46 (90%) were male. Median CD4 cell count was 131/mm³ and mean plasma RNA level was 4.98 log copies/mL. Among 51 patients studied, 46 (90%) were newly diagnosed patients. None of them were recent seroconverters. 46 (90%) were infected with subtype B and 5 (10%) with the non-B subtype strains (3 as CRF01_AE; 1 as CRF02_AG; 1 as subtype A). Of all 51 subjects tested, we did not find any primary mutations of NRTI, NNRTI as well as PI regions, resulting in an estimated prevalence of 0% in this study. Although no primary mutations were found, V118I was found in 2 patients and T69S in 1 patient for NRTI, V179D/E in 3 patients and A98G in 1 patient for NNRTI, and 50 of 51 (98%) patients carried one or more secondary PI mutations/polymorphisms.

Conclusion: Prevalence of transmitted antiretroviral drug resistance in drug-naive patients was still low in Korea.