Impact of antiretroviral dosing frequency and daily pill burden on virological success rates in patients of the ICoNA cohort starting their first ART

Complexity of antiretroviral treatment (ART) is a reason for non-adherence and may impact treatment outcome. The association between daily dosing and pill burden and chance of virological success (VS) of first ART has been rarely assessed. 3,674 naive patients who started treatment after January 2000 were identified from the ICoNA cohort. Number of daily doses and pills were estimated on the basis of the drugs used to rank first ART complexity: 1-2 daily pills once a day (low-pills QD [lpQD]); 3-6 daily pills QD (high-pills QD [hpQD]); 2-5 daily pills BID (low-pills BID [lpBID]); >6 daily pills BID (high-pills BID [hpBID]). VS was the date of first HIV RNA