Consensus recommendation from a group of German experts for the use of enfuvirtide in heavily pretreated HIV patients.

Background: The EU approval of enfuvirtide (Fuzeon(R)) was granted in May 2003 on the basis of the 48-week data from the TORO 1 and TORO 2 studies. Enfuvirtide is licensed for use in pretreated HIV patients experienced with three classes of drugs who exhibited treatment failure or who have shown intolerance to previous antiretroviral treatment regimens. Recent studies with the new protease inhibitors tipranavir and darunavir (RESIST and POWER studies) showed that a high proportion of heavily pretreated HIV patients achieve a viral load reduction to below the Emit of detection when treated with enfuvirtide plus one of these new ritonavir-boosted protease inhibitors and an optimised background treatment regimen [1]. The International AIDS Society (IAS-USA Panel) has recently updated its treatment guidelines in view of these new data and recommends the use of an antiretroviral treatment regimen containing at least two active drugs, one of which that has a new mechanism of action, for HIV patients who have been heavily pretreated. A new treatment goal has also emerged for heavily pretreated patients with advanced HIV disease: reduction of the viral load to below the detection limit of 50 copies/ml. The IAS concluded that the likelihood of achieving this treatment goal is higher when enfuvirtide is selected as one of the two active drugs [2]. Objective: A panel of German experts convened to discuss the currently available data and to incorporate them into the updated German consensus recommendations for the use of enfuvirtide when switching treatment in heavily pretreated HIV patients. Methods: The consensus recommendations are based on published data from controlled, randomised clinical studies and on the expert opinions of the discussants. Results and conclusions: The consensus recommendations were developed to provide practice-relevant standardised recommendations for selecting suitable candidates for enfuvirtide therapy and for their management. Aspects including predictive prognostic factors, disease stage, selection of the optimised background regimen, early indicators of a response to enfuvirtide, as well as accompanying educational measures treatment were considered. New protease inhibitors or other remaining active drugs should be used together with enfuvirtide in heavily pretreated patients in order to enable at least two active drugs to be included in such a salvage regimen.