Hepatitis C

The use of interferon to treat hepatitis C infections has fallen out of favor with the advent of new antivirals and drug combinations that have fewer side effects. But in a study presented at the 2015 International Liver Congress in Vienna, Austria, researchers from the UK said that physicians should put interferon back on the treatment menu.

As good news about new treatments for hepatitis C infections continues to dominate the 2015 International Liver Congress, Texas researchers today reported more success with sofosbuvir and daclatasvir.

A new antiviral combination is showing promise in treating patients with both chronic kidney disease and chronic hepatitis C, Texas researchers reported at the International Liver Congress in Vienna, Austria.

When it comes to developing heart disease, patients who have non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) liver disease are at greater risk of both cardiovascular illness and death than patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease a UK team reported today at the International Liver Congress in Vienna, Austria.

Researchers in India have found a reliable and sensitive marker to predict how close to organ failure seriously ill patients with liver disease may be.

After partial hepatectomy, the liver does not need an environment rich in microbes and microbial products to regenerate, a Swiss team reports. The finding contradicts earlier studies.

Patients with severe cirrhosis, those who are waiting for a liver transplant, or have recurrent hepatitis C infection following treatment are desperately ill. Researchers at the 2015 International Liver Congress reported that a fixed dose combination of ledipasvir/sofosbuvir given in combination with ribavirin helped many of these patients, according to the results from the SOLAR 2 trial.

As immunity to antibiotics continues to be an issue in the world of viruses, researchers from the University of Chicago (UChicago) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have found a way to force the stubborn pathogens to eliminate themselves.

A study of Rhode Island state prisons shines a spotlight on the trouble correctional facilities face because they aren't financially equipped to bear the budget-busting costs of new drugs to treat all inmates chronically infected with hepatitis C.

Japanese regulators recently approved the blockbuster hepatitis C drug Sovaldi as the first all-oral treatment regimen for genotype 2 patients in that country.

How could an effective, inexpensive hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug have been available at local pharmacies without clinicians and patients knowing it? Researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have the answer.

While less than 25% of centers in the United States offer kidney transplants to those infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), those patients are proving to have better outcomes than others following the surgery.

The FDA approved label warning changes for two Gilead Sciences hepatitis C drugs after one person died and nine others had serious reactions when the drugs were coadministered with amiodarone, a drug used to treat irregular heartbeat.

Making full use of its "breakthrough therapy" accelerated review protocol the US Food and Drug Administration in 2014 approved 51 new therapies, the most in 18 years.

Researchers who analyzed the cost of new high-price hepatitis C drugs found them to be cost effective for most patients yet likely to weigh down budgets of US government and insurance providers for years to come like no drug ever before.

Detectable hepatitis C viral loads seen when treatment has ended in patients taking direct acting antiviral therapy is not necessarily an indication that the drug regimen didn't work, according to results from a recent study.

The best time to treat children infected with the hepatitis C virus may be off in the future when newer, better drugs with fewer side effects are expected to be approved for pediatric populations.

A Philadelphia program operating in underserved neighborhoods found that residents chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus often lacked access to screening as well as treatment for the disease.

Physicians must decide on a case by case basis which patients will benefit the most from hepatitis C virus therapy, according to an editorial in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Combination treatment with daclatasvir and asunaprevir plus interferon/ribavirin had high success rates in a 24-week clinical trial for treatment of hepatitis C in patients coninfected with HIV.

An interferon/ribavirin-free pill that combines two drugs to treat patients with certain genotypes of hepatitis C who are also infected with HIV was found to be highly effective in a 12-week trial, clearing the hepatitis C virus from almost all the patients involved.

Bristol-Myers Squibb today announced that its Phase III clinical trial of a combination product daclatasvir-sofosbuvir showed dramatic cure rates for patients infected with both HIV and Hepatitis C. The results of the trial, known as ALLY-2, were presented at the 2015 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle, WA.

The high cure rate associated with new drugs approved to treat chronic hepatitis C has stirred debate about the relevance of early diagnosis and treatment of the acute stage of this infectious liver disease.

Today, there are multiple combinations of interferon-free treatments that have efficacy rates of 90% or higher and are better tolerated with fewer severe side effects than previous interferon-based therapies.

A clinical trial conducted by drug maker AbbVie resulted in a 95% cure rate of hepatitis C among Japanese patients who were treated with an all-oral, interferon-free combination drug, the company announced.

Recent drug approvals and continuing breakthroughs in research are creating additional treatment options for patients with hepatitis C.

Treatment for hepatitis C should be offered to the sickest patients first, according to updated guidelines from the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

In 2 recent studies, statins and aspirin have been associated with lower rates of progression of liver fibrosis in patients with hepatitis C.

Screening of newborn children for hepatitis C and new, more effective hepatitis C treatments may virtually eliminate the disease in the United States by 2036, according to some liver disease experts.

Following similar approvals in the United States and Canada, AbbVie has been granted marketing authorization by the European Commission for an all-oral, interferon-free combination drug for the treatment of genotypes 1 and 4 chronic hepatitis C infection.