Adherence & Retention
Pharmacy refill data to detect ARV treatment failure
Dear Colleagues,
I am interested in how people are using pharmacy refil data to inform decisions around ARV treatment failure in the absence of HIV RNA testing. I will post a paper by Greg Bisson and colleagues suggests that pharmacy refil data performs better than CD4 monitoring at detecting viral failure. I think it is one of the most important papers in 2008 and curious if others agree.
Best regards,
David Bangsberg
Ziad El-Khatib
Dear David,
Thank you.
He also reported about treatment failure among highly adhering group in Botswana, using pharmacy refill data.
Antiretroviral Failure Despite High Levels of Adherence: Discordant Adherence-Response Relationship in Botswana (JAIDS; July 2008).
Patients complain sometimes about miscalculation of pills, or they can share with research team they count their pills before coming to clinic, but they won't tell the clinic staff etc...
I am also curious to know how to make use of the pharmacy refill data.
Best regards
ziad
12:20 AM, 21 Oct 2008 | Permalink
David Bangsberg, MD, MPH
Dear Ziad,
Yes I noticed the Bisson paper looking at treatment failure at high levels of adherence. The first time I read it, I was a bit skeptical and thought the VL rebound events were undetected interruptions in treatment that were missed by pharmacy refil data. Curious if others find this tenable.
I am reconsidering my skepticims, however. More later....
Best,
David
2:43 AM, 21 Oct 2008 | Permalink