Survival of HIV-1 Infected Multidrug-Resistant Patients Recycling Enfuvirtide After a Previous Failure

Introduction: A substantial proportion of HIV-1 infected multidrug-resistant patients previously exposed to enfuvirtide (ENF) have recently recycled the drug as part of their optimized backbone therapy when starting a new antiretroviral regimen including investigational drugs, but no data are available concerning the impact of this strategy on clinical outcome. We evaluated long-terra survival in multidrug-resistant patients recycling ENF after a previous failure. Methods: A retrospective analysis of clinical outcomes in 32 multidrug-resistant patients receiving fewer than 3 active drugs who reintroduced ENF with those who did not. Results: Patients characteristics were not different in the 2 groups at the start of ENF treatment. During follow-up, 6 of the 15 patients (40%) who did not recycle ENF died, as did 3 of the 17 (17.7%) who recycled ENF Survival probability was higher among patients who recycled ENF (P = 0.0006), also when the analysis was subdivided by CD4 cells gain (P = 0.003) or viral load decrease (P = 0.0003) at the end of the first cycle or the use of investigational drugs during follow-up (P = 0.003). Conclusions: We found significantly longer survival in patients who reintroduced an ENF-containing regimen after a previous failure on the drug. We therefore suggest considering ENF recycling in patients starting a new regimen with fewer than 3 active drugs.