Modeling of fusion inhibitor treatment of RSV in African green monkeys.

Highlights • The paper examines four possible mathematical models for the effect of fusion inhibitor treatment of respiratory syncytial virus infections. • The models are fit to data from a treatment study of RSV in African green monkeys. • We find that the data are insufficient to discriminate between the different drug models. • We find dose and treatment delay combinations that could discriminate between the different models. Abstract Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a respiratory infection that can cause serious illness, particularly in infants. In this study, we test four different model implementations for the effect of a fusion inhibitor, including one model that combines different drug effects, by fitting the models to data from a study of TMC353121 in African green monkeys. We use mathematical modeling to estimate the drug efficacy parameters, ε max , the maximum efficacy of the drug, and EC 50 , the drug concentration needed to achieve half the maximum effect. We find that if TMC353121 is having multiple effects on viral kinetics, more detailed data, using different treatment delays, is needed to detect this effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]