Atazanavir, an antiviral drug prescribed to prevent mother-to-fetal transmission of HIV, is believed to have negative effects on language acquisition and socio-emotional development in children.
Thanks to improved antiretroviral therapy, the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV has been reduced to around 1% in industrialized countries. But among the molecules prescribed to pregnant women, atazanavir would cause developmental disorders in children, suggests an American study published in the journal AIDS.
Researchers at the Chan School of Public Health at Harvard studied 917 children born to mothers with HIV. All took the antiretroviral treatment recommended to reduce the risk of transmission, but only 167 women received atazanavir. On their first birthday, doctors studied the children to assess their language learning and social interactions.
The results show that children who were exposed in utero atazanavir speak less well than children exposed to other antiretrovirals. These disorders have been observed in all children whether they were exposed in the first trimester of pregnancy, in the second or in the third.
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In addition, children exposed to atazanavir developed impaired emotional development. But unlike language disorders, these are only seen in children exposed during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.
For the researchers, this work supports previous studies revealing this slight delay in speech in children exposed to this antiretroviral. However, “these differences should not have significant clinical complications, but they add a new risk to the myriad of biological and socio-environmental risks to which these children are often exposed”, explain Dr. Ellen Caniglia and her colleagues, before explaining. add that “these results will be useful in better planning the treatment of women with HIV”.
Further work will be needed to assess whether these disorders persist beyond one year. This research should also provide a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms, and determine whether these developmental alterations may be linked to another molecule, tenofovir, frequently used in combination with atazanavir.
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