Virologic response to antiretroviral therapy in people with HIV and tuberculosis in high tuberculosis burden countries

Objective: We sought to compare virologic outcomes on antiretroviral therapy (ART) between people with HIV (PWH) also treated for tuberculosis in the different countries who participated to two randomized trials. Design: Pooled analysis of two randomized clinical trials. Methods: In the phase II Reflate TB and phase III Reflate TB2 trials conducted in Brazil, Cote d'Ivoire, Mozambique and Vietnam, ART-naive PWH treated for tuberculosis were randomized to receive raltegravir or efavirenz. We assessed country differences in baseline characteristic using Wilcoxon tests and chi-square, or Fisher's exact test. We used logistic regression to analyze determinants of virologic success, defined as week48 plasma HIV-1 RNA <50 copies/ml. Results: Of 550 participants (140 from Brazil, 170 from Cote d'Ivoire, 129 from Mozambique and 111 from Vietnam) with median baseline HIV-1 RNA of 5.4 log10 copies/ml, 362 (65.8%) achieved virologic success at week 48. Virologic success rates were: 105/140 (75.0%) in Brazil, 99/170 (58.2%) in Cote d'Ivoire, 84/129 (65.1%) in Mozambique and 74/111 (66.7%) in Vietnam (P = 0.0233). Baseline HIV-1 RNA, but not the country, was independently associated with virologic success: baseline HIV-1 RNA >= 500 000 copies/ml (reference), HIV RNA <100 000 copies/ml odds ratio 3.12 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.94; 5.01] and HIV-1 RNA 100 000-499 999 copies/ml odds ratio: 1.80 (95% CI 1.19; 2.73). Overall, 177/277 (63.9%) patients treated with raltegravir and 185/273 (67.9%) patients treated with efavirenz had a plasma HIV-1 RNA <50 copies/ml at week 48. Conclusions: Virologic response to antiretroviral therapy in PWH with TB varied across countries but was mainly driven by levels of pretreatment HIV-1 RNA. Copyright (c) 2023 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.