Table 1. Characteristics of included studies.
| Author | Year | Design | Population | N | Tube | Assay | Intervention | Control | Outcome | |
| Amellal [22] | 2007 | Matched controlled trial | Mixed treatment population, France | 10 | EDTA | Roche Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor v1.5 | Plasma>1 d 25°C, | Plasma 80°C | 7d 4°C rho = .98, p = .003 | |
| Plasma>5 d 4°C | 7d 22°C rho = .99, p<.001 | |||||||||
| 7d 37°C rho = .87, p = .012 | ||||||||||
| Amellal [21] | 2008 | Matched controlled trial | HIV+ on ART, France | 25 | EDTA | Roche Cobas Taqman HIV-1 | Plasma>5 d 4°C, | Plasma 7d 20°C | 7d 4°C rho = .98, p = .003 | |
| 22°C, 30°C, 37°C | 7d 22°C rho = .99, p = <.001 | |||||||||
| 7d 30°C rho = .99, p = <.001 | ||||||||||
| 7d 37°C -.92 log copies (p = .05) | ||||||||||
| Bruistein [15] | 1997 | Matched controlled trial | ART naïve, Netherlands | 14 | EDTA | NucliSens HIV-1 QT | Whole blood>6h 25°C | Matched blood samples at t = 0. | Whole blood (median, range) log copies) | Plasma 30°C (median, range) |
| Whole blood>1 d 4°C | 0h 4°C 5.99 (4.46–6.59) | 0d 5.19 (4.70–5.78) | ||||||||
| Plasma>1 d 25°C | 6h 4°C 5.93 (4.53–6.39) | 1d 5.19 (4.74–5.68) | ||||||||
| Plasma>5 d 4°C | 1d 4°C 5.87 (4.39–6.26 | 2d 5.07 (4.56–5.68) | ||||||||
| 3d 4°C 5.87 (4.26–6.23) | 7d 4.45 (4.04–5.18) | |||||||||
| 0h 25°C 6.01 (4.39–6.53) | 14d 3.59 (3.30–4.33) | |||||||||
| 6h 25°C 5.90 (4.55–6.59) | ||||||||||
| 1d 25°C 5.93 (4.35–6.56) | ||||||||||
| 3d 25°C 5.93 (4.48–6.54) | ||||||||||
| Dickover [16] | 1998 | Matched controlled trial | Mixed treatment population, USA | 20 | EDTA | Roche Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor | Whole blood>6h 25°C | <1 h 25°C EDTA | 1d 25°C 80% (+/.08) RNA baseline | |
| 2d 25°C 72% (+/.08) RNA baseline | ||||||||||
| Gessoni [17] | 2004 | Matched controlled trial | ART naïve, Italy | 25 | EDTA | Roche Cobas Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor | Whole blood>1 d 4°C | Whole blood Room temp for 3h | <6h 4°C 4.677 log copies | |
| 7d 4°C 4.33 log copies | ||||||||||
| Holguin [18] | 1997 | Matched controlled trial | HIV+, pre-HAART era | 29 | EDTA | Roche Cobas Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor | Whole blood>24h Room temp | Whole blood Room temp for 4h | 24h room temperature 3.671 log copies; P = 0.082 vs. control* | |
| Holodiny [23] | 1995 | Matched controlled trial | ART naïve, USA | 6 | PPT | Siemens Versant HIV-1 RNA (bDNA) | Whole blood>6h 25°C | 30h 137% (+/48 SE) RNA baseline, not significant | ||
| Kirstein [19] | 1999 | Matched controlled trial | Mixed treatment population, USA | 65 | EDTA | Siemens Versant HIV-1 RNA; Roche Cobas Amplicor HIV-1 Monitor | Whole blood>6h 25°C | Whole blood Room temp for 2h | 6h 23°C -.02 (+/.14 SD) RNA baseline | |
| 18h 23°C 0.9 (+/.17 SD) RNA baseline | ||||||||||
| Vandamme [20] | 1999 | Matched controlled trial | HIV+, Belgium, Luxembourg | 12 | EDTA | NucliSens HIV-1 QT | Whole blood 48 h, 168h 25°C | Whole blood t = 0 | 48h 25°C 0.125 log decline168h 25°C 0.296 log decline | |
| 168h 25°C 0.296 log decline | ||||||||||
ART, antiretroviral therapy; PPT, plasma preparation tube; EDTA,; rho, spearman’s rank correlation coefficient.
* Note: there was no trend towards more variation among lower viral loads (data not specified).