Hepatitis C News

Having non-hepatitis C virus cirrhosis and diabetes puts patients at a higher risk for developing hepatocellular carcinoma, according to research recently published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

The epidemiology of hepatitis C indicates a substantial burden of disease lies within the so-called “Birth Cohort” population, which includes individuals born between 1945 and 1965. As a result, the CDC recommends that all people born between those years be tested at least once for HCV.

In this issue, HCV Next asks five questions of Zarine Shah, MD, MBBS, assistant professor in the Division of Abdominal Imaging, Department of Radiology at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.

Somewhere between one-quarter and one-half of acute hepatitis C infections clear spontaneously, usually within 6 months, depending on the population or cohort. Accordingly, the authors of the joint American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and Infectious Diseases Society of America HCV guidelines recommend a watching and waiting strategy for patients with recent or acute disease. The societies adopted this approach in the interferon era, when treatment was often more complicated and toxic than the disease itself, particularly for patients with no symptoms. But now that patients can be treated with direct-acting antivirals effectively and largely without incident, that approach may be outdated.

Patients with hepatitis C who were also being treated for opioid addiction achieved high rates of sustained virologic response with Zepatier, according to data published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

In this guest commentary, Michael Saag, MD, director of the Center for AIDS Research, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Co-Editor in Chief of HCV Next, discusses the treatment of HIV/hepatitis C virus coinfection following the advent of direct-acting antivirals.

Sharing snorting utensils — more specifically straws — to ingest opiates and other drugs may be considered another risk factor for hepatitis C virus infection and other virus transmission, according to results from a prospective study.

Results from a survey from the Canadian Liver Foundation show a large number of Canadians may be living with undiagnosed hepatitis C virus.

In a prospective study, acoustic radiation force impulse elastography, or ARFI, accurately predicted fibrosis severity in patients with hepatitis C virus infection who achieved sustained virologic response with therapy.

Trek Therapeutics announced the acquisition of the development and commercialization rights to the infectious disease inhibitors lomibuvir and merimepodib.