Current drug use does not hinder treatment of hepatitis C virus

WASHINGTON — Active IV or prescription drug use did not affect attainment of sustained virologic response when treatment adherence for hepatitis C virus was already variable, according to a poster presented at The Liver Meeting.

“These observations show that the more important factor in terms of predicting treatment outcome is whether the patient is compliant with therapy, not whether they’re concurrently using substances,” Tiberiu Moga, MD, a gastroenterologist at Indiana University Health, said in the presentation.

In a single-center retrospective cohort study, Moga and colleagues reviewed charts of 111 people who inject drugs (PWID) patients with variable adherence to HCV treatment at the Erie County Medical Center from 2014 to 2021 to examine the relationship between active drug use during HCV treatment and treatment failure. Variable adherence was defined as missing five or more doses of treatment or having a lapse in treatment of at least 5 days.

According to study results, 63.6% of patients who were actively using drugs achieved SVR12 during treatment compared with 73% of patients who reported drug abstinence. Moreover, 71.4% of patients using prescription opioids during treatment achieved SVR12 compared with 71.1% of patients not using prescription opioids.

Researchers also noted 81.1% of patients who were not on opioid substitution therapy achieved SVR12 compared with 77.4% of patients who were on opioid substitution therapy (P = .035).

“We did see an association between opioid substitution use during therapy and lower rates of SVR12 among patients who have variable adherence to therapy. However, we don’t know if this was a true association vs. a confounding variable effect,” Moga said. “As such, our data show that HCV treatment should not be withheld due to concerns of current or future substance use during the treatment course.”