Recently diagnosed with HIV? Click here

Antiretrovirals and your kidneys

Positive Living article • www.aidsmap.org • 26 November 2009
Kidneys -image

Despite having been linked to the kidneys, tenofovir (Vireadand also in the combination pill Truvada) appears not to cause more problems than other NRTIA type of anti-HIV drug that works by inhibiting a stage of the HIV life cycle called reverse transcription. Non-nucleosides work in a similar way, but are chemically different. drugs, US investigators have reported.

They found that there is often a modest decline in kidney function when either tenofovir or an alterative drug is used as part of initial therapy, but that this soon stabilises. However, their research does show that taking tenofovir in combination with a ritonavir­boosted protease inhibitor may have an adverse effect on the health of your kidneys.

Generally, kidney function improves once you start taking HIV treatment but declines are sometimes observed in people taking antiretroviralA medication or other substance which is active against retroviruses such as HIV. therapy if their viral loadA measurement of the quantity of HIV RNA in the blood. Viral load blood test results are expressed as the number of copies (of HIV) per milliliter of blood plasma. is not fully suppressed.
www.aidsmap.org

Text size: font smallerfont normalfont larger print-friendly version of this pagePDF version of this pageemail this page to a friend

From Positive Living

This article was first published in the December 2009 issue of Positive Living.

While the content of this was checked for accuracy at the time of publication, NAPWA recommends checking to determine whether the information is the most up-to-date available, especially when making decisions which may affect your health.

This article may contain medical information. NAPWA makes every reasonable effort to ensure the information on this website is accurate, reliable and up-to-date, including obtaining technical reviews by medically-qualified reviewers, however the authors of information on this website are not qualified to give medical advice, except where explicitly stated.

The content of this website is intended to support, not replace, the relationship between people living with HIV/AIDS and their medical advisers, and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice.

HIV Clinical Trials update