Clinical evaluation of the efficacy and tolerability of ritonavir in combination with two reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

A retrospective study of 76 patients was carried out using ritonavir in an antiretroviral regimen combined with two reverse transcriptase inhibitors to treat outpatients from July, 1996, to April, 1998, with the objective of evaluating clinical efficacy and tolerability. Seventy-six percent of the patients had been diagnosed with AIDS, an average number of CD(4) cells = 233.7 cells/mm(3) and viral load = 144, 084 RNA copies/mm(3). The majority of patients (76.3% )were antiretroviral treatment-experienced, 21.4% having taken protease inhibitors. A positive clinical response was found in 86.7% (including an average weight gain of 4.4 kg in 58.5% ), an average CD(4) count increase of 169.5 cells/mm(3) in 83.3% and an average viral load decrease of approximately 2.28 log in 75% of patients. A high percentage of adverse effects (76.3% ) was detected, with most slight or moderate, but they significantly impacted adherence to treatment as 31.6% stopped taking the drug as a result. We conclude that this antiretroviral regimen has good clinical efficacy, but relatively poor tolerability.