Other studies have shown that the peak level of viral response is seldom reached in eight weeks, and not always even in 24 weeks, and that the peak response cannot be measured solely in the bloodstream. Tissue reservoirs of HIV take longer to clear. Moreover, these studies did not use the newer, more sensitive viral load tests which can distinguish between people with hundreds of copies of HIV RNA and people with less than 50 or 20. Taken together, these considerations argue that the switch to maintenance therapy in these studies occurred far earlier than it should have. For now, all that can be said is that an early switch to maintenance therapy is not warranted.
Further study is warranted.