Efficacy of a five-drug combination including ritonavir, saquinavir and efavirenz in patients who failed on a conventional triple-drug regimen: phenotypic resistance to protease inhibitors predicts outcome of therapy

Abstract

Our results indicate that the combination of ritonavir, saquinavir and efavirenz is safe and effective at 24 weeks in over two-thirds of patients who previously failed on highly active antiretroviral therapy, and that the determination of phenotypic resistance may be of greater value than the detection of resistance mutations to predict the outcome of salvage therapy in this setting.