LAUSR

In their recent article, O’Halloran et al. [1] describe a statistically significant rise in circulating levels of soluble glycoprotein VI (sGPVI) among individuals switched from abacavir (ABC) to tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) at 48 weeks as part of the SWIFT study. As ABC is associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI) even in the absence of a traditional risk factor profile [2], it also marks the prospect of a biomarker to identify at-risk individuals early in therapy. The authors conclude that the change seen in sGPVI supports the role of platelet–collagen interactions in explaining increased MI rates in ABC-treated patients. However, the performance characteristics of the sGPVI assay – specifically precision – casts doubt on the robustness of the results.