Published in:
Open Access 01-12-2021 | Tuberculosis | Research
Adoption of evidence-informed guidelines in prescribing protease inhibitors for HIV-Tuberculosis co-infected patients on rifampicin and effects on HIV treatment outcomes in Uganda
Published in: BMC Infectious Diseases | Issue 1/2021
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Background
We aimed to determine how emerging evidence over the past decade informed how Ugandan HIV clinicians prescribed protease inhibitors (PIs) in HIV patients on rifampicin-based tuberculosis (TB) treatment and how this affected HIV treatment outcomes.
Methods
We reviewed clinical records of HIV patients aged 13 years and above, treated with rifampicin-based TB treatment while on PIs between1st—January -2013 and 30th—September—2018 from twelve public HIV clinics in Uganda. Appropriate PI prescription during rifampicin-based TB treatment was defined as; prescribing doubled dose lopinavir/ritonavir- (LPV/r 800/200 mg twice daily) and inappropriate PI prescription as prescribing standard dose LPV/r or atazanavir/ritonavir (ATV/r).
Results
Of the 602 patients who were on both PIs and rifampicin, 103 patients (17.1% (95% CI: 14.3–20.34)) received an appropriate PI prescription. There were no significant differences in the two-year mortality (4.8 vs. 5.7%, P = 0.318), loss to follow up (23.8 vs. 18.9%, P = 0.318) and one-year post TB treatment virologic failure rates (31.6 vs. 30.7%, P = 0.471) between patients that had an appropriate PI prescription and those that did not. However, more patients on double dose LPV/r had missed anti-retroviral therapy (ART) days (35.9 vs 21%, P = 0.001).
Conclusion
We conclude that despite availability of clinical evidence, double dosing LPV/r in patients receiving rifampicin-based TB treatment is low in Uganda’s public HIV clinics but this does not seem to affect patient survival and viral suppression.