Initiation of efavirenz-based combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) is associated with Vitamin D deficiency, but the risk factors including efavirenz pharmacokinetics for cART-induced severe vitamin D deficiency (SVDD) and the impact of anti-tuberculosis (TB) cotreatment are not explored. We investigated the prevalence of SVDD in HIV and TB-HIV coinfected patients and associated risk factor...

A question that immediately arises is: Why did the combination of lopinavir/r + efavirenz result in the lowest level of lipoatrophy? Part of the answer may be that no nukes, particularly thymidine analogues such as d4T or AZT, were present. Also, test-tube research done in Canada and France suggests that ritonavir may be able to stimulate the growth of fat cells and, perhaps, counter the effect...

Efavirenz concentrations were measured in 21 patients during an interruption cycle of the ANRS 106 Window trial. The median efavirenz concentrations in the patients 12 h, 3 days, and 7 days after discontinuation of the drug were 1,962 ng/ml, 416 ng/ml, and 112 ng/ml, respectively. The half-life ranged from 27 to 136 h. No relationship between efavirenz exposure and detection of nonnucleoside re...

Tuberculosis is the most common indication for initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in low-resource settings. Incidence of tuberculosis in patients with HIV/AIDS receiving ART is much higher than in the general population, even for patients who respond to treatment and whose CD4 cell counts increase to the normal range. Therefore treatment of both diseases is frequently necessary. However...

A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine examined the relationship between efavirenz use and suicide, suicide attempt, or suicidal ideation.3 The investigators analyzed data from 4 AIDS Clinical Trials Groups, antiretroviral-naïve studies between 2001 and 2010. Within each study, subjects were randomly assigned to either an efavirenz-containing regimen or an efavirenz-free regim...

We present the case of an HIV-infected patient with cirrhosis in whom severe neuropsychiatric signs and symptoms developed in the setting of a significantly elevated plasma efavirenz level. Although mild neuropsychiatric symptoms are a well-known adverse effect of this medication, to our knowledge, this is the first report of status epilepticus with routine efavirenz dosing. This case raises se...

Literature data pertaining to the decision to allow a waiver of in vivo bioequivalence testing for the approval of immediate-release (IR) solid oral dosage forms containing efavirenz as the only active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) are reviewed. Because of lack of conclusive data about efavirenz's permeability and its failure to comply with the "high solubility" criteria according to the Biop...

INTRODUCTION Primate studies and some observational human data have raised concern regarding an association of first-trimester efavirenz exposure with central nervous system congenital anomalies. The objective of this review is to update evidence on efavirenz safety in HIV-infected pregnant women to inform revision of the 2013 WHO guidelines for antiretroviral therapy in low and middle-income c...

Daily efavirenz 400 mg (EFV400) was virologically noninferior to 600 mg (EFV600) at 48 weeks in treatment-naïve patients. We evaluated EFV400 and EFV600 pharmacokinetics (NONMEM v. 7.2), assessing patient demographics and genetic polymorphisms (CYP2B6, CYP2A6, CYP3A4, NR1I3) as covariates and explored relationships with efficacy (plasma HIV-RNA (pVL) <200 copies/mL) and safety outcomes at 48 we...

OBJECTIVES The potential cardiovascular (CV) toxicity associated with combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) has been attributed mainly to the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors abacavir and didanosine. However, the other two components of cART--non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) and protease inhibitors (PIs)--may also be implicated, either directly or by influenc...