Comparison of Costs of Strategies for Measuring Levels of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 RNA in Plasma by Using Amplicor and Ultra Direct Assays

The costs of four algorithms for monitoring plasma human immunodeficiency virus type 1 RNA were compared. For patients with strong virologic responses, the use of Ultra Direct exclusively was the cheapest strategy. For patients with weak virologic responses, small savings could be obtained by using Amplicor and retesting only samples with values below 500 copies/ml with Ultra Direct.