Please, may you list known side effects of Isentress? I'm going to start therapy and I need to make a choice between Isentress and Kaltera. May help me in the evaluation? I've read a study about the chance of switching to Isentress after first therapy with Kaletra. Do you think I could switch to Kaletra from Isentress in case of resistence or failure of the therapy?

Thank you

Hello and thank you for your post.

To me, this is an easy one. Kaletra is a now aging first-line PI (at least here in the US) that's been replaced in most cases with other, better tolerated and perhaps more potent PIs. Isentress is the first of the HIV integrase inhibitors; while not directly compared in head-to-head studies with protease inhibitors, is better tolerated than efavirenz (Sustiva, part of Atripla).

Taken together, unless the twice-daily dosing of Isentress is a significant barrier to taking your medications adherently, this is more likely to be better tolerated.

Should there be a problem with Isentress (either with unexpected intolerance or treatment failure) you could still switch to Kaletra (or any other boosted protease inhibitor).

I hope this helps, BY