Table 1 Patient characteristics when starting a first suppression episode or a first subsequent suppression episode. Patients had to be antiretroviral treatment naive before achieving viral suppression on a first combination antiretroviral regimen. Viral suppression had to be recorded using a more sensitive assay: ultrasensitive versions of the Amplicor assay (if the lower limit of detection was recorded as <50 copies/ml), the Abbott RealTime assay, and the TaqMan assay versions 1 and 2

Female (%)

27

34

Injection drug use (%)^b

9

17

Age (median, years)

40

43

CD4 cell count (median, cells/μL)

430

460

Year (%)

 Before 2005

10

10

 2005 to 2009

46

55

 After 2009

45

35

Assay (%)^c

 Roche Amplicor ultrasensitive

12

14

 Abbot RealTime

1

1

 Roche TaqMan version 1

37

45

 Roche TaqMan version 2

50

41

cART class (%)

 NNRTI

42

31

 Boosted PI

47

47

 Single PI

4

7

 Entry or integrase inhibitor

4

7

 Other^d

3

7

Magnitude of first blip (%)

 No blips

78

72

 Low (50–199 copies/mL)

19

23

 Medium (200–499 copies/mL)

2

4

 High (500–999 copies/mL)

1

2

Number of blips (%)

 None

78

72

 One

16

20

 Two

4

6

 Three or more

2

2

Viral rebound (%)

19

33