No pol mutation is associated independently with the lack of immune recovery in patients infected with HIV and failing antiretroviral therapy

An investigation was undertaken to determine whether specific pol mutations hinder long-term immune recovery regardless of virological response. In total, 826 patients with >50 HIV RNA copies/ml, who underwent genotypic resistance testing between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2003 after >3 years of antiretroviral treatment, and were followed up for >3 years after genotypic resistance testing, were analyzed retrospectively. The outcome of the study was the lack of immune recovery after >3 years of follow-up, defined as a slope by linear regression <0. The viremia detectability ratio was defined as the number of HIV RNA values of >50 copies/ml divided by the number of HIV RNA measurements during follow-up. Logistic regression was used for univariable and multivariable analysis. Median (Q1, Q3) values at baseline were the following: age 40 (37, 45) years, years on antiretroviral therapy 4.45 (3.65, 5.47), HIV RNA 3.91 (3.39, 4.53) log(10) copies/ml, CD4+ T-cell 358 (211, 524)/µl. After 3.13 years of follow-up, 375 patients (45.4%) showed a lack of immune recovery. The risk of lack of immune recovery increased independently with increasing baseline CD4+ counts (OR=1.104 per 50-cell increase, 95% CI=1.069-1.142, P<0.0001), increasing viremia detectability ratio during follow-up (OR=1.145 per 0.1-unit increase, 95% CI=1.093-1.202, P<0.0001), and with earlier calendar years of resistance testing (overall effect: P=0.0007). In conclusion, no pol mutation is associated independently with the lack of immune recovery.