Transgender Women Have Suspicions About The Way ARV Drugs Correlate with Hormones

At the 9th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2017) last month in Paris was announced that transgender women with HIV-positive status have lower adherence to antiretroviral drugs because of their suspicions about the way ARV drugs correlate with feminising hormones.

Specialists say, that transgender women wary about  ART and hormone therapy used simultaneously and it’s side-effects, but often did not talk about these concerns with their treating doctors. As higher hormone therapy adherence and access to transgender-specific healthcare are associated with higher ART adherence,  comprehensive care programs for HIV-positive trans women is needed,  including clinical integration of hormone therapy and ART services.

As the aidsmap.com edition wrote, Jordan Lake of the University of California at San Francisco and colleagues set out to learn more about trans women's knowledge about hormone therapy and antiretroviral side-effects and drug interactions, and how this affected treatment adherence.

"Despite all indications that transgender women are a critical population in HIV care, very little is known about how to optimize co-administration of ART and hormonal therapies in this population. This study suggests this void of information may mean some transgender women forgo life-sustaining HIV medications, identity-affirming hormone therapy, or some combination of the two. By exploring the extent to which this is happening, we can find ways to better serve this population." -  said Lake in an official press release issued by the US National Institutes of Health, which co-sponsored the research.