Protease inhibitors can restrain HIV in semen more slowly that the other drugs

Spanish scientists from Sevilla found in their research that protease inhibitors are not the best medications for people, who just had known their HIV-positive study, NAM Publication reported. They concluded that NNRTI drugs or integrase inhibitor drugs suppress HIV in semen quicker that protease inhibitors do.

36 gay man took part in a research. All of them just found their HIV-positive status and had never used ART therapy. So their started their treatment with Truvada and then were divided into three groups by the third drug they used in therapy: Edurant, Vitekla and so on.

The study has found that HIV was fully suppressed in blood of those who used elvitegravir, viral load was still detectable by those who took darunavir.
There were small differences between the randomised groups at the researche’s very beginning, such as the age of participants and other factors like that, but they were not statistically significant.

This research showed that a drug of the second-generation of NNRTIs, rilpivirine, suppressed HIV in semen fast, so that it is not needed no to suppose that etravirine (closer related sister drug) could had shown better results. The conclusion the spanish scientists made was surprising, cause before was already known that viral load tends to drop more slowly in semen, by those who took the integrase inhibitors cause a faster-than-average drop.

CD4 rises were particularly equal in all the groups so if the main consideration is health rather than infectiousness, speed of viral suppression matters less, but if this matters if the patient has HIV-negative partner. In this case to the patient protease inhibitors would appear to be not such a good choice.