Electronic compliance assessment of antifungal prophylaxis for human immunodeficiency virus-infected women.

Several prophylactic medications for opportunistic or recurrent infections are used in human immunodeficiency virus-infected individuals. Essential to the efficacy evaluation of these agents is the accurate reporting of medication compliance. We hypothesized that poor patient compliance with thrice-weekly fluconazole prophylaxis would correlate with the occurrence of clinical events. Fluconazole compliance was monitored electronically by using the Medication Event Monitoring Systems with 19 women receiving fluconazole at 50 mg thrice weekly for prophylaxis of recurrent mucocutaneous candidiasis. During 202 patient-months of follow-up, eight breakthrough episodes of mucocutaneous candidiasis developed in four women; compliance data were available for seven of these episodes. At 6 months of therapy, more women with greater than or equal to 80% compliance were disease free compared with women with less than 80% compliance (P < 0.05; the Fisher exact test). These data suggest that documentation of medication compliance is essential in studies of chronic prophylaxis in human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients to properly evaluate drug efficacy and to avoid erroneous conclusions concerning drug failure.

Human immunodeficiency virus infection in North American women: experience with 200 cases and a review of the literature.

This study was designed to define the epidemiology and natural history of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in women in Rhode Island. Two hundred women referred to Brown University physicians from 1986 through 1990 were evaluated at 3-to-6-month intervals for 12 to 60 months. All received antiretroviral therapy and prophylaxis against opportunistic infections when indicated on the basis of CD4 lymphocyte counts. Major findings included: 1) rapid shift of dominant mode of transmission from intravenous drug sharing to heterosexual route; 2) significant gender-specific differences in clinical presentation; 3) increased frequency of cervical dysplasia in women infected via intravenous needle sharing; 4) no definite gender-specific differences in progression of HIV infection; 5) enormous societal impact of HIV infection in women. Principal conclusions are: 1) rapid change to predominantly heterosexual HIV transmission can occur in North America, with serious societal impact; 2) gender-specific clinical features can lead to earlier diagnosis of HIV infection in women; 3) HIV infection in women does not pursue an inherently more rapid course than that observed in men.