Therapeutic drug monitoring in HIV treatment: a literature review.

PURPOSE: Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is the practice of managing plasma drug concentrations. This intervention can potentially improve inadequate antiretroviral dosing in the treatment of HIV infection. Our objective was to review the evidence regarding TDM in HIV management.
METHOD: We searched MEDLINE using the following key words: therapeutic drug monitoring, HIV infection, pharmacokinetics, antiretroviral therapy, protease inhibitors, antiretroviral-naïve, antiretroviral-experienced, and salvage therapy. inclusion criteria required definition of optimal concentration thresholds and measures of treatment effectiveness at these targets.
RESULTS: Our search yielded 39 studies. 11 studies met inclusion criteria. 4 studies compared efficacy of TDM to standard of care (SOC) interventions via randomized clinical trials and were grouped as "interventional." 7 studies retrospectively defined thresholds from observed differences in outcome and were grouped as "observational." 3 interventional studies targeted similar indinavir concentrations (Cmin = 0.10-0.15 mg/L). 2 of these studies increased achievement of target serum levels and percentages of undetectable viral load (23%-41%, p < or = .009) with TDM implementation.
CONCLUSION: TDM can effectively target antiretroviral threshold concentrations and improve virologic suppression in some cases. Further work is needed to define plasma thresholds and assess the value of TDM in HIV management.