Comparison of HIV-1 resistance profiles in plasma RNA versus PBMC DNA in heavily treated patients in Honduras, a resource-limited country.

The World Health Organization currently does not recommend the use of dried blood spot specimens for drug resistance testing in patients undergoing antiretroviral therapy (ART). Therefore, HIV-1 resistance testing using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) may be of value in resource-limited settings. We compared genotypic resistance profiles in plasma and PBMCs from patients failing ART in two cities of Honduras (Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula), a resource-limited country. One hundred patients failing ART were randomly selected from a longitudinal patient monitoring cohort. Plasma and PBMC samples without patient identifier were used for genotypic resistance testing. Sequence data were analyzed, resistance profiles were determined and compared using Stanford HIV Drug Resistance Database algorithm. Specimens with concordant resistance profiles between the two compartments were 88% (95% CI: 80.3% - 94.5 %). Nine specimens (12%, 95% CI: 6.5% - 21.3%) had discordant resistance profiles of clinical significance. Logistic regression analyses indicated that patients on triple therapy were 17.24 times more likely to have concordant drug resistance profile than those on non-triple therapies (OR=17.24, 95% CI: 3.48, 83.33), while patients with increasing number of regimens and years on ART have a decreased rate of concordance (OR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.32, 1.09 and OR = 0.62, 95% CI: 0.43, 0.88), respectively, than those with less number of regimens and years on ART. Our results show high level of concordance between plasma and PBMC resistance profiles, indicating the possibility of using PBMCs for drug resistance testing in resources-limited settings.