Week 96 Outcomes of Patients With Less Treatment Experience Versus More Treatment Experience Receiving Etravirine in the DUET Trials

Background: The disease profile of treatment-experienced HIV-1 patients (TEPs) looks different today compared with that of 5 years ago. Because less highly treated DUET patients may more closely resemble today's TEPs, we conducted a post hoc efficacy and safety analysis of the pooled 96-week DUET data stratified by level of treatment experience. Methods: TEPs with HIV-1 were randomised to etravirine (ETR) 200mg twice daily (bid) or placebo bid with a background regimen for 48 weeks (plus optional 48-week extension). TEPs were categorized using 10 demographic and disease characteristics that in prior studies of treatment-experienced subjects had been associated with virologic response; patients meeting ≥5 criteria were categorized as less TEP. Results: 183 patients (men, 87.4%) who received ETR were less TEP and 413 patients (men, 91.0%) were more TEP. At baseline, more TEPs had more advanced disease, more previous antiretroviral (ARV) exposures and fewer options for active ARVs. At Week 96, for patients receiving ETR, response rates for the less TEP group and more TEP group were 68.3% and 52.8%, respectively. Incidence of adverse events (AEs) was similar between groups. A greater proportion of nonresponders in the more TEP group discontinued due to AEs (9.0% vs 5.5%) and virologic failure (18.9% vs 5.5%) compared with the less TEP group. Conclusion: Less TEPs had higher virologic response rates with ETR compared with more TEPs. Because the less TEP population from DUET more closely resembles TEPs with HIV-1 today, data from this subgroup may provide valuable information for real-life treatment decisions.