• Molood Farrokhi, Mohammad Gholami, Minoo Mohraz, Willi McFarland, Kazem Baesi, and Ladan Abbasian.
• Iranian Research Center for HIV/AIDS, Iranian Institute for Reduction of High Risk Behaviors, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
• J Res Med Sci. 2019 Jan 1; 24: 31.

BackgroundAntiretroviral (ARV) therapy extends life for persons living with HIV. Antiretroviral treatment (ART) has been rapidly expanding coverage around the world, including in Iran. However, ART drug resistance also rapidly develops with expanding use and limits effectiveness and treatment options. The aim of this study was to monitor the appearance of new mutations conferring HIV pretreatment drug resistance in the treatment of naïve patients with HIV in Iran.Materials And MethodsBlood samples were obtained from ARV treatment-naïve patients from 8 different provinces in Iran in 2016 for genotyping for drug resistance mutations.ResultsSequences were successfully obtained from 90 specimens. Of these, 2 (2%) mutations conferring resistance to protease inhibitors, 2 (3%) conferring resistance to nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), and 9 (13%) conferring resistance to non-NRTI (NNRTI) were detected. Any ARV-resistant drug mutation was found in 11 patients (12%).ConclusionNearly one in 8 ARV-naïve patients had mutations associated with NNRTI resistance in diverse areas of Iran in 2016. Iranian ARV therapy guideline for HIV could consider non-NNRTI-based first-line therapies and expand routine drug resistance testing before treatment initiation as according to HIV drug resistance recommendations of the World Health Organization.

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