The majority of urban American men who have sex with men, or MSM, who are at risk for HIV do not use pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment, or PrEP — suggesting a need for more interventions that increase awareness and uptake of PrEP in this group, according to findings from CROI 2020.

“The four-city study found that PrEP is still underutilized by high-risk men who have sex with men [MSM] and that there is substantial misinformation, including perceptions that the medications have more side effects than they actually do,” Kenneth H. Mayer, MD, medical research director at Fenway Health and co-director of The Fenway Institute and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told Healio.

Mayer and colleagues examined data from the HPTN 078 study, which included HIV screening for 1,305 MSM in Boston, Baltimore, Atlanta and Birmingham in 2018. The current analysis included HIV-negative MSM from those same cities who met CDC risk criteria for HIV. The researchers reviewed patient-reported sociodemographic information, behavioral risk factors and attitudes about PrEP for all participants. Plasma tenofovir concentrations were measured for participants who noted that they used PrEP in the past 12 months. Univariate and multivariable models were used to examine the factors that correlated with knowledge of PrEP, use of PrEP in the past 12 months and the presence of protective plasma tenofovir concentrations (>40 ng/mL). Read more via Healio