HIV/AIDS Clinical Trial Enrollment Halted due to Early Results

January 18, 2006 - The Strategies for Management of Anti-Retroviral Therapy (SMART) trial compared continuous antiretroviral therapy with episodic drug treatment, also referred to as drug conservation therapy, and early results on January 11 demonstrated that continuous therapy was superior. Enrollment in the trial was halted.

The study was conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, National Institutes of Health, within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and is an international collaboration of 318 clinical sites in 33 countries. The episodic treatment group faced more than twice the risk of disease progression and increases in major complications such as cardiovascular, kidney, and liver diseases.

For more information:

• International HIV/AIDS Trial Finds Continuous Antiretroviral Therapy Superior to Episodic Therapy (U.S. National Institutes of Health)

Last revised: August 15, 2007