Efficacy and Safety of Dual Therapy With Dolutegravir/Lamivudine in Treatment-naive Persons With CD4 Counts <200/mm3: 48-Week Results of the DOLCE Study

BACKGROUND: Dolutegravir (DTG)/lamivudine dual therapy (DT) has demonstrated noninferiority to triple therapy (TT) in the GEMINI trials. Although the population with ≤200 CD4 cells/mm3 had a lower response rate, this was unrelated to virological failure. This trial evaluated the antiviral activity of dolutegravir/lamivudine among antiretroviral therapy (ART)-naive patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) with a CD4 count ≤200 cells/mm3. METHODS: DOLCE is a randomized, hypothesis-based, open-label, multicenter study l, assessing the antiviral efficacy of DTG/3TC at week 48 in treatment-naive people with HIV (PWH) with CD4 counts ≤200 cells/mm3. Participants were randomly assigned in a 2:1 ratio to receive DTG/3TC as a single tablet regimen or DTG plus Tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF)/XTC: Emtricitabine or lamivudine (FTC or 3TC). The primary endpoint was the proportion of participants with pVL <50 copies/mL at week 48 (Food and Drug Administration snapshot analysis intent-to-treat exposed population). This report presents results at week 48. RESULTS: Baseline characteristics were similar in both arms. In the DT arm, median CD4 cell count was 109 cells/mm (interquartile range [IQR]: 49-177) and median pVL was 180,000 copies/mL (IQR: 53 309-468 691); 45.4% had CD4 <100 cells/mm3, and 61.4% had pVL >100 000 copies/mL. CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) stage C: 31.4%. At week 48, virological suppression (pVL <50 copies/mL) was achieved 82.2% in the DT (125/152), and the CD4 count increased by +200 cells/mm3. Per-protocol analysis showed a response rate of 91.9%. Severe adverse events (n = 17) were reported in 15 of 152 participants (11.1%). CONCLUSIONS: Dolutegravir/3TC demonstrated high efficacy in a population with low CD4 counts and high viral load. This study adds information regarding the efficacy and safety of DTG/3TC, regardless of baseline CD4 counts and viral load. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT04880395.