Practice Management News

VIENNA — Serum bile acids and pruritus remained unchanged in pediatric patients with allagile syndrome after treatment with LUM001, according to a late breaker presentation at the 2015 International Liver Congress.

VIENNA — After receiving their diagnoses, patients with viral hepatitis report suffering stigma and discrimination at the hands of family, friends, employers and even health care practitioners, according to a survey presented at the 2015 International Liver Congress.

VIENNA — Gut decontamination combination therapy with propranolol and rifaximin greatly reduced hepatic venous pressure gradient in patients with cirrhosis vs. propranolol monotherapy, according to data presented at the 2015 International Liver Congress.

Healio.com/Hepatology will offer live coverage from the International Liver Congress beginning Thursday.

Primary sclerosing cholangitis is a chronic cholestatic liver and biliary tract disease that can shorten life and may require liver transplantation, according to study data. The prevalence in the United States is estimated to be in the range of one to more than 16 per 100,000 and varies across different regions of the world. There is no approved therapy for the disease, which can progress over time and lead to recurrent biliary tract obstruction and recurrent episodes of cholangitis to end-stage liver disease.

SillaJen, Inc. has reached an agreement with the FDA on a Special Protocol Assessment for a phase 3 clinical trial of its drug Pexa-Vec for the treatment of advanced liver cancer and will begin enrolling patients later this year, according to a press release.

Compared with 4-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy, single-incision laparoscopic cholecystectomy may be more stressful and physically demanding to surgeons, which could affect patient outcomes, according to data presented at the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons 2015 Annual Meeting.

The rapid evolution of highly effective, curative therapies for hepatitis C virus infection, establishment of new HCV screening practice guidelines, and rising rates of HCV-related complications have prompted the need for updated, evidence-based and expert-developed recommendations for practitioners managing HCV.

The National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with officials in Washington, D.C., have launched the ASCEND Study to determine if the specific type of health care provider influences outcomes when administering hepatitis C virus infection treatment to a patient, according to a press release from the NIH.

In 2014, hepatitis C virus infection medications and compounded medications were responsible for more than half of the increase in overall drug spending, with the United States spending 743% more money on medication to treat hepatitis C virus infection in 2014 compared with 2013, according to a press release.