Longer Treatment Duration Cures More Patients with Hepatitis C Genotype 2 and Cirrhosis

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The sofosbuvir/ribavirin treatment is typically prescribed for 12 weeks, but the researchers recommended that these patients up the duration to 16 to 20 weeks.

“We demonstrated that using the recommended extended duration in patients with more severe disease, 95% of patients with severe liver disease, including cirrhosis, can be cured,” said the report.

SVR12 was achieved in 95.53% of patients overall. Further data breakdown showed SVR12 success in 99.15% in non-cirrhotics and 93.06% in cirrhotics. Similar SVR12 rates occurred in cirrhotics whether they were on the treatment for 16 or 20 weeks (94.51% and 94.94%, respectively).

A liver doesn’t go from healthy to cirrhosis quickly. It takes 10 to 20 years of heavy drinking or 20 to 30 years of hepatitis C infection to get to that stage; and before that, a person experiences inflammation and fibrosis. If left untreated beyond that point, hard scar tissue replaces soft healthy tissue and scarring of the liver takes places—meaning cirrhosis.

The study, “Sofosbuvir and Ribavirin for genotype 2 HCV infected patients with cirrhosis: a real life experience,” was published in the Journal of Hepatology.