The HCPLive conference coverage page features articles, videos, and expert-led live coverage from major medical meetings throughout the year.
Q&A With Ana Maria Crissien From Scripps Green Hospital: Studying Regression In Liver Disease
A considerable amount of research has been done looking at how liver disease can progress in patients, but a recent study looked at possible regression in conditions like cirrhosis and fibrosis.
Who Gets a Liver? Transplant Centers Differ on Substance Abuse Abstinence Rules
Donor livers are scarce, donated organs are precious, and transplant surgeons make the final call on whether to transplant. When the question of whether to give a liver to a patient who uses marijuana, drinks too much alcohol, or even smokes tobacco comes up, the issue gets tricky.
HCV: Making it Rare in the US Will Cost $106 Billion, Study Finds
The annual US cost of HCV treatment before direct-acting antivirals was $7 billion and since then it has grown to $21 billion, but that cost should drop when generics arrive, to $14 million annually by 2030. Making it a rare disease over the next 25 years will take $106 billion, researchers project.
Treating HCV Patients Who Fail Direct-Acting Antivirals
All is not lost when hepatitis C genotype 1 patients fail to benefit from treatment with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). Reporting at the 2015 Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA, Fred Poordad, MD, of the Texas Liver Institute/University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, TX, and colleagues said they had success retreating patients who had failed DAAs.
Kids Who Live Far from Liver Transplant Centers More Likely to Die Waiting for Organ
Georgraphy matters in getting a liver transplant. Boston researchers found that living a long distance from a transplant center increased a child's risk of dying while on an organ waiting list, even though that distance did not mean a longer waiting time.
Drug Trial Brings China Closer to Getting Access to HCV Antivirals
An estimated 10 million people in China have hepatitis C but the only treatment available there is interferon/ribaviron. Though the drug-approval process in China is slower than in other nations, a phase 3 trial of two Bristol-Myers Squibb direct-acting antivirals has been completed, putting access to DAAs closer.
New Regimen Shows Promise for HCV Genotypes 1, 2, and 3
A regimen of grazoprevir, elbasvir, and a Merck agent known as MK-3682, or a second agent called MK-8408 (or both), showed "strong results" company researchers said in data presented at the 2015 Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA.
Alcoholic Hepatitis: Filtering Device Helped Younger, Less Ill Patients
A human-cell-based liver support system meant to keep patients alive despite acute liver failure did not help overall survival in a trial, but showed promise for a subset of patients. Those patients were younger and not as sick-though all subjects enrolled had alcoholic hepatitis.
Panvirals: Good News from ASTRAL-1
Researchers who conducted the ASTRAL-1 trial of sofosbuvir/velpatasvir attending the Liver Meeting (AASLD) in San Francisco, CA, presented results of a study on an antiviral that works on five types of hepatitis C virus. The study findings were released last month by manufacturer Gilead.
Insurance Lagging on Paying for HCV Antivirals
The high costs of direct-acting antivirals to treat hepatitis C infection is no secret, but neither is the fact that the drugs are cost-effective. Pennsylvania researchers found insurers were lagging in approving payment for the drugs in their four-state region, with Medicaid programs the worst offenders.
Tofacitinib Effective for Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients with Inadequate Response to Methotrexate
In a post-hoc analysis, researchers found that the clinical efficacy of tofacitinib after 6 months of treatment was greater than placebo, and appeared similar regardless of methotrexate dose.