| Univeristy of Brescia, Italy |
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The Institute has an outpatient department (where 2,568 HIV-positive patients were actively being followed-up as at mid 2004). All clinical and laboratory patient information are systematically filed on a electronic chart. Completeness and quality of the database is routinely checked every six months. All HIV mutations or polymorphisms detected in the reverse transcriptase or protease genes are recorded on the same software support, thus a direct link with clinical data is easily available to perform clinical-genotypic correlation studies (either retrospective or prospective ones).
A total of 1,949 HIV genotypic resistance tests were performed as at mid 2004 (16.4% in patients naive for antiretroviral treatment; 37% of patients receiving more than 1 resistance test during the entire treatment history). |
The Institute of Infectious and Tropical Diseases is located in Brescia, northern Italy. It is one of the largest centres caring for HIV-positive patients in Italy. It has received official approval by NIH-USA for conducting clinical trials (e.g. ACTG 384, 388).