The problem of antiretroviral drug resistance in treatment of HIV infection and resistance testing results in HIV-infected patients in City Infectious Botkin Hospital № 30.
Contemporary data on mechanisms of emergence, methods of detection, epidemiology and clinical relevance of HIV resistance to antiretrovirals are reviewed and the results of HIV resistance testing of 117 HIV-infected patients in St-Petersburg are reported. HIV resistance is a result of mutations in viral genome due to errors during reverse transcription. On the background of therapy the virus selection resistant to the medications used are provided. Such viruses can be transmitted under infection (primary resistance). The prevalence of primary HIV resistance ranges from 5 % to 10 % in the USA and Europe but remains very low in Russia, including St-Petersburg. HIV resistance in antiretroviral-experienced patients is a major clinical problem that requires the change of the treatment scheme. It most frequently appears in patients previously treated with one- or two-drugs regimens or who had therapy interruptions.