HIV Drug Resistance and Treatment Strategies - Fourth International Workshop.

The fourth HIV Resistance Meeting, as it is commonly referred to, gathered the leading specialists in clinical and experimental treatment research on HIV and AIDS. Over 180 researchers met to discuss the state-of-the-art in antiretroviral treatment, the most recent findings on the development of resistance in naive and experienced patients and the possible ways to reconstruct the immune system in early infected individuals and at later stages of the disease. Strong emphasis was placed on the relationship between genotype- and phenotype-based HIV drug resistance evaluations, and their possible impact on the response to antiretroviral therapy. Contrasting, and sometimes confronting, evidence was presented on the predictive value of genotypic and phenotypic evaluation of HIV drug susceptibility. Extensive studies will be needed to establish the clinical cut-offs that parallel HIV genotype or phenotype resistance if these are to establish themselves as relevant clinical tools to assess treatment success.