Letter from CME Chair, Jonathan Schapiro, MD

Dear Reader,

It is our pleasure to provide you the third installment of our new series on HIV drug resistance. We hope you find this issue interesting and educational. The aim of this series is to improve basic knowledge and understanding of HIV drug resistance, touching on many of its evolving aspects. We hope this will facilitate a more learned approach to dealing with this important challenge.

In this issue we try to tackle the challenging topic of multi-drug resistant (MDR) patients. Although antiretroviral therapy has drastically improved the prognosis of HIV infected individuals, it has resulted in selection of virus resistant to most or all of our currently-available therapies in some patients. We will try to highlight some of the key, clinically-relevant data recently presented at the XVI International HIV Drug Resistance Workshop as they are important to these patients, and help us look ahead to new treatment options which may soon improve our choices.  

Jonathan M. Schapiro, MD

Director HIV/AIDS, National Hemophelia Center, Israel

Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine (VCF)

Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA