Over-the-counter medications, food supplements, and other drugs may interact with antiretroviral therapy (ART) in people living with HIV and be harmful, an industry-sponsored clinical survey from Denmark reports.
"Our study confirms that polypharmacy and being on a protease inhibitor-based regimen increase the risk of potential drug-drug interactions (PDDIs) considerably and highlights the importance of questioning people living with HIV (PLWH) about dietary supplement intake," the authors, led by Michaela Tinggaard, MD, Copenhagen University Hospital, write in HIV Medicine.
"Potential drug-drug interactions were common among our study population. Although the clinical significance of the majority of the identified PDDIs may be low, most of them were avoidable through a change or discontinuation of the comedication, a change in ART or by spacing drugs," they add.
Senior author Thomas Benfield, MD, DTMH, DMSc, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Copenhagen, and colleagues collected information on prescription medication, over-the-counter medication, and dietary supplements from adults living with HIV who received ART from two outpatient clinics.
The researchers estimated the prevalence of non-HIV comedications, and they used the University of Liverpool HIV Drug Interactionsdatabase to identify potential drug-drug interactions. They evaluated PDDIs and used logistic regression models to investigate links between PDDIs and relevant variables.
