Reducing the boosting dose of ritonavir does not affect saquinavir plasma concentrations in HIV-1-infected individuals.

Currently, the optimal boosting dose for saquinavir is unknown. Therefore, we evaluated the pharmacokinetics profiles in a cross over setting comparing saquinavir/ritonavir 1500/50 mg (plus NRTI backbone) to saquinavir/ritonavir 1500/100 mg in the same HIV-infected, Thai individuals. The 50% reduction of ritonavir boosting did not result in a change in the pharmacokinetics of saquinavir, whereas the ritonavir exposure was significantly lower when a dose of 50 mg was administered.