Is There A Resistance Problem With Protease Inhibitors?
HIV’s deadly ability to mutate and develop resistance to antiviral drugs has proven the central barrier to our efforts to develop potent and lasting therapies. Similar to all previous antiviral drugs, protease inhibitors can also fall victim to HIV’s uncanny ability to develop strains that are drug resistant. However, at this time, the resistance is problematic only when the protease drugs are administered in monotherapy. Another devastating threat posed by protease monotherapy is the development of cross-resistance because resistance to one protease inhibitor often confers multi-drug resistance to several of the other protease inhibitors. However, with more carefully chosen treatment strategies in which protease inhibitors are used in combination with approved antivirals such as 3TC plus AZT or ddI, the size and duration of the antiviral effect is greatly enhanced. Since combination therapy requires HIV to mutate its genetic structure as many as eight times, it is hoped that the newly
