Long-acting combination of cabotegravir plus rilpivirine: A picture of potential eligible and ineligible HIV-positive individuals from the Italian ARCA cohort

Objectives: We aimed to evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of people living with HIV (PLWH) eligible for the long-acting injectable (LAI) regimen with cabotegravir (CAB) and rilpivirine (RPV), in comparison with ineligible individuals.Methods: This was an observational, cross-sectional study from the ARCA cohort, including virologically suppressed PLWH with at least one genotypic resistance testing (GRT) for reverse transcriptase and integrase from plasma and/or PBMCs. Eligibility criteria for LAI CAB + RPV were: negative HBsAg, absence of previous virological failures and/or resistance-associated mutations for non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) and/or integrase strand transfer inhibitors. Potential differences between eligible and ineligible individuals were investigated by univariable and multivariable analyses.Results: A total of 514 individuals were included: 377 (73.3%) were male, median age was 51 (IQR: 43- 58), on ART for 9 years (IQR: 4-17), virologically suppressed for 63 months (IQR: 35-105). Eligible individuals for CAB + RPV were 229 (4 4.5%, 95%CI: 40.8-48.8); compared with ineligible individuals, they received a lower number of previous regimens (aOR 0.76, 95% CI 0.71-0.83, P < 0.001) and were on current NNRTIs (aOR 2.16, 95% CI 1.38-3.37, P = 0.001). Conclusions: Less than half of virologically suppressed PLWH in the ARCA cohort were potentially eligible for CAB + RPV. They seem to be "less complicated" with shorter exposure to ART and preferably already on NNRTIs.& COPY; 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )