HIV Preventive Tx Appears Safe for Fetus, Study

Antiretroviral therapy taken by uninfected women to prevent HIV transmission from infected male partners did not cause significant fetal harm or add risk to normal pregnancy, researchers reported here.

There was no statistically significant association between women receiving pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and those receiving placebo and the occurrence of pregnancy losses, reported lead author Nelly Mugo, MBChB, MPH, an HIV prevention research scientist at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.

The researchers recruited 1,785 couples from Kenya and Uganda. 598 women received the daily PrEP oral treatment made with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), 566 of them received a combination of TDF with emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (FTC+TDF) and the remaining 621 received a placebo.

The researchers recorded a total of 431 pregnancies. There were no huge differences in pregnancy and pregnancy losses between the groups. 42.5 percent of the women in the FTC+TDF group, 32.3 percent of women in the placebo group and 27.7 percent of women in the TDF group lost a pregnancy. The researchers found that after July 11 when they stopped the placebo group, they found that the pregnancy lost rate was 37.5 percent for the FTC+TDF group and 36.7 percent in the TDF group.

Agencies/Canadajournal