Hepatitis C News

LAS VEGAS — In this exclusive video from ACG 2016, Tram T. Tran, MD, FACG, medical director of liver transplantation, Liver Disease and Transplant Center, Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, discusses the role of gastroenterologists in future hepatitis C virus treatment, and how they will play a role in assisting primary care physicians in treatment.

LAS VEGAS — The United States Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendation to perform hepatitis C virus antibody testing in adults born between 1945 and 1965, also known as baby boomers, is effective for the detection of HCV prevalence in this group, according to findings presented at ACG 2016.

Patients with HIV who receive antiretroviral therapy have higher risk for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma if they are coinfected with hepatitis B and C viruses, according to study findings published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

When Mitchell L. Shiffman, MD, chose to leave an academic medical center after 20 years of directing a highly successful hepatology and liver transplant program and “hang a hepatology shingle” in Central Virginia, he forged a path to bring specialized hepatology care out of the academic medical center silo and into the community.

One of the by-products of sustained viral response rates at or above 90% in most populations with hepatitis C is that the very nature of research into the disease is altered, perhaps irrevocably. For most of the history of HCV, while clinicians and researchers desperately searched for a cure — or at least improvement of side effects and end results with interferon-based therapy — concurrent research was conducted in other areas of HCV, including the factors associated with spontaneous clearance and those that cause recurrence or relapse. Today, with all eyes on DAA therapies, there seems to be less room for those peripheral analyses.

Late in the month of October and early in the month of November, the Infectious Disease Society of America and the AASLD will hold their national meetings. Over the last several years, these meetings have become the preeminent opportunity for investigators within the respective disciplines of ID and hepatology to come together and review the most current information on the treatment of hepatitis viruses and other related conditions in highly rigorous and interactive scientific forums.

In this issue, HCV Next asks five questions of Ryan M. Ford, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Emory Healthcare.

Despite the availability of effective treatments for hepatitis C virus infection, Canadian researchers showed that restrictions imposed by governments often hinder patient access to direct-acting antivirals.

A data linkage study from New South Wales, Australia showed hepatitis B-associated hepatocellular carcinoma rates declined in recent years, whereas hepatitis C-associated HCC rates increased.

In a prospective study, a majority of patients with hepatitis C virus infection-associated mixed cryoglobulinemia vasculitis experienced high sustained virologic response rates after therapy with an interferon-free, direct-acting antiviral-based regimen, according to published findings.