Interruption of reverse transcriptase inhibitors or a switch from reverse transcriptase to protease inhibitors resulted in a fast reappearance of virus strains with a reverse transcriptase inhibitor-sensitive genotype

Abstract

The results of this study indicate the sustained lower fitness of mutant strains in vivo. As a result, wild-type virus remains capable of outcompeting the RT or protease mutant strains very fast after removal of the drug. These findings highlight the importance of 'treatment history' in addition to genotypic and phenotypic markers determined at one time-point, when making therapeutic decisions for patients.