The use of pooled viral load testing to identify antiretroviral treatment failure

摘要: Background: To develop less costly methods to virologically monitor patients receiving antiretroviral therapy, we evaluated that use pooled blood samples and quantitative information available from viral load assays a cohort of on first-line therapy for virologic failure. Methods: We 150 collected after 6 months participants enrolled in San Diego primary infection program between January 1998 2007. Samples were screened failure with individual testing, 10 × matrix pools minipools five samples. For the platforms (matrix minipools), used search retest algorithm based data resolve remained ambiguous Viral thresholds more than 500 1500 copies/ml 250 minipool. Efficiency, accuracy result turnaround times evaluated. Results: Twenty-three percent detectable at 50 HIV RNA copies/ml. At an threshold copies/ml, both minipool half number screen cohort, compared testing individually. Both pooling had negative predictive values 100% loads least 94% Conclusion: In this improved efficiency monitoring over minimal decrease accuracy. These may allow induction sustainability resource-limited settings.