PRO 140 is a laboratory-made antibody that blocks the CCR5 receptor on CD4 cells. By blocking CCR5, PRO 140 prevents the HIV virus from infecting healthy cells. PRO 140 may be an effective new treatment drug for HIV-infected patients because it has the potential to address the limitations of currently available therapies. PRO 140 has emerged as an important new therapy and has entered testing. this review included two small randomised controlled trials (RCTs).
Even though available evidence from the two trials suggests that PRO 140 may be effective, the number of patients in these two studies was very small, and the results of these two studies may be influenced by potential biases. PRO 140 has been granted fast-track approval status by the United States Food and Drug Administration, but the efficacy of PRO 140 still needs to be proven in large, long-term high-quality RCTs. The two studies reviewed here only evaluated the short time (59 days) efficacy. The long time efficacy was not evaluated, and adverse events data were not reported adequately for each group. So, we can not judge the effects and safety of PRO 140 from these two small trials, and any recommendations cannot yet be made for applying this evidence. Whether PRO 140 could be used in clinical practice as first-line treatment for HIV depends on the results of high-quality future RCTs.