The Less Drugs Regimens (LDRs) therapy approach in HIV-1: an Italian expert panel perspective for the long-term management of HIV-1 infection.

The standard treatment approach in HIV-1 infec-tion involves a combination of at least three anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, i.e. highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), to fully suppress theplasma HIV-1 RNA viral load (VL). Currently, rec-ommended first-line antiretroviral regimens con-sist of two nucleoside (NRTI)/nucleotide (NtRTI)analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors com -bined with a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptaseinhibitor (NNRTI) or a ritonavir-boosted proteaseinhibitor (PI/r), or an integrase strand transfer in-hibitor (INSTI). Furthermore, standard subse-quent-line regimens involve an HAART approach,with at least a triple combination of ARV drugs. For the first time, the Italian Guidelines on the