Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents
INTERRUPTION OF ANTIRETROVIRAL THERAPY
There are multiple reasons for temporary discontinuation of antiretroviral therapy, including intolerable side effects, drug interactions, first trimester of pregnancy when the patient so elects, and unavailability of drug. There are no currently available studies and therefore no reliable estimate of the number of days, weeks or months that constitute a clinically important interruption of one or more components of a therapeutic regimen that would increase the likelihood of drug resistance. If any antiretroviral medication has to be discontinued for an extended time, clinicians and patients should be aware of the theoretical advantage of stopping all antiretroviral agents simultaneously, rather than continuing one or two agents, to minimize the emergence of resistant viral strains (see Principle 4).
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