Switch rates, time-to-switch, and switch patterns of antiretroviral therapy in people living with human immunodeficiency virus in Japan, in a hospital-claim database

BACKGROUND: Regardless of chronic treatment with antiretroviral therapy (ART), the switching rate for ART regarding anchor drugs has not been articulated in real-world clinical-settings in Japan. We assessed switch rates and time-to-switch of ART regimens according to anchor drug classes (integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTI), non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) and protease inhibitors (PI)) and common switching patterns of anchor drug classes in people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (PLWH) from 2008 to 2016. METHODS: This retrospective, observational study used data of 1694 PLWH drawn from a large-scale medical claims database. The median time-to-switch and switch rates of anchor drug class were estimated by Kaplan-Meier analysis. To estimate 95% confidence intervals for switch rates and median days, the Brookmeyer and Crowley method and Greenwood method were used respectively. The switching patterns were summarized based on the time of switching. The switch rates were compared between two anchor drug classes for each year using log-rank tests. RESULTS: We focused our results on 2011–2016 (n = 1613), during which most ART prescriptions were observed. A total of 268 patients switched anchor drug class from the first to a second regimen. The switch rate constantly increased over four years for NNRTIs (17.8–45.2%) and PIs (16.2–47.6%), with median time-to-switch of 1507 and 1567 days, respectively, while INSTI maintained a low switch rate (2.3–7.6%), precluding median-days calculation. The majority originally treated with NNRTI and PI switched to INSTI regardless of the switching timing after starting the first regimen (< 1 year: 91.7 and 97.5%, respectively, and ≥ 1 year: 100.0 and 97.5%, respectively). The risk of switching anchor drug classes was lower for INSTI than for other anchor drug classes in the first regimen even after adjusting for potential confounding factors. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with an ART regimen including INSTI as an anchor drug class maintained a low switch rate for long durations. The major switching strategies of anchor drug class for secondary treatment were from NNRTI or PI to INSTI. These results suggest that INSTI may be a durable anchor drug class for PLWH on ART although there are limitations inherent to the database. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12879-019-4129-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.