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Direct-acting antiviral treatment for hepatitis C did not correlate with an increased risk for hepatocellular carcinoma in a large cohort study of both treated and untreated patients with or without cirrhosis. Those with incident HCC after DAA treatment had higher risk factors at baseline.
“There was no increased risk for HCC as a result of having received DAA therapy whatsoever,” Raymond T. Chung, PhD, director of Hepatology and Liver Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Healio Gastroenterology and Liver Disease. “The risk was related to their preexisting likelihood of developing HCC. The fact that HCC developed post-DAA, we think, is more likely to be an accident of timing than the idea that it’s related to receipt of DAA — these persons were at risk for HCC whether they received DAAs or not.”
“The initial reports put physicians into a state of concern about treating such patients,” Chung continued, “but ours and several other studies all align in the respect that the DAAs themselves do not appear to be independently associated with an increased risk for HCC.”