Brief Report: Associations Between Gender and Solicited Adverse Events After Passive Infusion of VRC01 or Placebo in HVTN 704/HPTN 085

Abstract

Background: Realizing the potential of HIV prevention options requires understanding product tolerability across diverse groups vulnerable to HIV acquisition. Gender minority (GM) individuals are understudied in clinical trials. Setting: HVTN 704/HIV Prevention Trials Network 085, a phase 2b randomized HIV prevention trial, enrolled MSM and transgender participants from Brazil, Peru, Switzerland, and the United States to receive an infusion every 8 weeks (10 total) of VRC01 30 mg/kg, VRC01 10 mg/kg, or placebo. Solicited adverse events (AEs) were recorded for 3 days after each infusion. Methods: Gender was defined by self-report and sex assigned-at-birth. Multivariate mixed logistic models were used to estimate the association between gender (cisgender men [CM] vs. GM participants [transgender women, transgender men, or another gender]) and solicited AE frequency and severity. Results: GM participants reported more solicited AEs than CM among all participants (adjusted OR 1.59, 95% CI: 1.20 to 2.10, P = 0.001) and among placebo recipients (1.72, 1.05 to 2.81, P = 0.031). The severity of solicited AEs (occurrence of grade 2 and higher event) did not significantly differ overall (1.83, 0.79 to 4.20, P = 0.174) or among placebo recipients (3.05, 0.76 to 12.32, P = 0.112). Grade 2 events were reported after 1% and 2% of total infusions among CM and GM participants, respectively. Grade 3-4 events were rare overall (