Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C infection, tied to a rise in illicit use of opioid drugs, is on the rise in New York City, city health officials concluded in an annual report.

The European Commission has approved expanded use of a Bristol-Myers Squibb hepatitis C drug to include patient populations with decompensated cirrhosis, HIV-1 coinfection and post-liver transplant recurrence of the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging dialysis providers to assess and improve infection control practices, in part because the agency has received an increased number of reports of newly acquired HCV infection among patients undergoing hemodialysis.

Merck's Zepatier is a once-daily pill prescribed over 12 or 16 weeks and is approved for treating patients with hepatitis C genotype-1 and genotype-4.

The CDC has seen a tremendous growth in acute HCV infection reports among patients undergoing hemodialysis.

Patients with chronic hepatitis C can develop cirrhosis, a serious condition characterized by scarring of the liver – but just how many patients actually reach this point?

Vertical transmission, or the spread of infection from mother to baby during childbirth, is the most common way that children get hepatitis C. However, it turns out that these children are rarely tested for the disease.

A multi-study analysis shows that a majority of patients with hepatitis C maintained sustained virological response five years after they were treated but researchers found higher risk of reinfection among patients in two subgroups.

Community health centers screen less than 10% of baby boomer patients (and more men than women) for hepatitis C, a much lower percentage than recommended by national guidelines revised in 2013, according to a recently published study.

Even with direct-acting antivirals, not all patients with chronic hepatitis C can be cured. That might be because patients develop antibodies to interferon, a drug that is still part of DAA regimens, Italian researchers report.

Diclofenac is a common wallet-friendly painkiller; but it may also be just the boost cancer treatments need for better outcomes.

Researchers from four leading surgical centers investigated the hypothesis that hepatitis C infection increases risk of adverse outcomes after lower-extremity total joint arthroplasty.

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted Gilead Sciences priority review of a New Drug Application that seeks approval of its combination drug to treat all genotypes of chronic hepatitis C infection, the company announced.

Gut microbial makeup could be at fault for obesity and diabetes because of the liver’s fat processing methods, according to a study published in Cell Metabolism.

It was not long ago that patients with hepatitis C were among the leading candidates for liver transplants. Now that many forms of the disease are curable that attention can be turned to other patients in need.

The MELD (Model for End-stage Liver Disease) scoring system was developed to decrease access disparity for patients who need a liver transplant. Despite its implementation, large geographic disparities exist in the likelihood of either being removed from the transplant list due to progressive disease or actually receiving a transplant.

Researchers say they have discovered a new human virus confirmed from genetic screenings of blood samples that appears to be linked to hepatitis C but it is unknown whether it can cause disease.

Patients who have the hepatitis C virus are at a significantly higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

Over the past year, researchers have dug deeper into uncovering novel approaches to hepatitis C testing, treatment, and comorbidities and have made some great discoveries.

A public health experiment in which the Egyptian government has obtained large quantities of sofosbuvir for much less than its retail price is impacting the lives of tens of thousands of people.

A group of health professionals and researchers have received grants to study treatments for substance use disorders and hepatitis C among people incarcerated in state prisons.

Researchers from the University of California, San Diego evaluated 60 pairs of adult twin participants using liver MRIs between January 2012 and January 2015 in order to investigate the heritability of hepatic fibrosis.

The much-criticized high prices of directing-acting antivirals for hepatitis C are headed for a plunge -- but not in the US. Much as they did with HIV drugs years ago, pharma companies are giving away patents in many poor nations. Prices in the US will likely not change much.

Questions around the price of treatments for hepatitis C virus have been all over the news lately.

A team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have identified a new approach that may soon lead to the discovery of a vaccine to treat the hepatitis C virus.

Physicians and patients in Tasmania are finding creative ways to get around the high cost of drugs to treat the hepatitis C virus. The group is importing the medications in powdered form or as tablets, from countries like India, Bangladesh and China, where patents for the drug does not exist.

A report released by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OH) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) came to the conclusion that Gilead Sciences charged more for its blockbuster hepatitis C virus medications Sovaldi and Harvoni than required to recoup acquisition costs, clinical research, and marketing expenditures.

Injection drug users who reuse or share syringes spread hepatitis C and HIV. About half of these users live outside the cities, but there are relatively few needle exchange programs available to them, according to the CDC.

Patients in many nations do not yet have access to direct acting antivirals for hepatitis C infection. A Saudi gastroenterologist advises colleagues to consider the drugs, despite their cost.

Treating hepatitis C sooner rather than later -- even at the early stages of liver fibrosis -- is worth the thousands of dollars it costs to pay for the new, more effective drugs, according to researchers who developed a model to assess historical treatment data.