Highlights from the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2016: 22-25 February 2016, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

The ultimate test of HIV remission is maintenance of undetectable plasma viraemia off antiretroviral therapy. Several studies, both past and recent have explored how common this phenomenon is and what factors predict successful viral control where present. There is no unifying definition of post-treatment control (PTC), in terms of length of time plasma viral load (VL) remains below a certain threshold and comparison between studies demonstrates a variable definition of the phenotype. Table 1 summarises studies presented at the meeting where individuals were enrolled into a carefully monitored analytical treatment interruption (ATI) strategy. Overall, despite many years of successful viral suppression and CD4 recovery, PTC was uncommon. Where virus rebounded, this occurred generally within the first 2–8 weeks after ATI