Background: New antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and improved formulations and coformulations of existing ARVs are actively promoted to diminish a patient's pill burden and to minimise the opportunity for mismatched dosing, although the effect of these advances is poorly understood. We determine how these changes affect the total daily pill burden (TDPB) for ARV and other drug use over a 20-year period.
Methods: Using our in-house pharmacy database, we calculated the daily number and associated pill burden of oral ARV and non-ARV (prescription and over-the-counter) medications taken by every patient within the Southern Alberta Cohort (SAC) between 1990 and 2010.