New and Noteworthy
TreatmentUpdate 202: Hepatitis C Virus
The latest issue of TreatmentUpdate contains in-depth information about Hep C treatments that have recently been approved by Health Canada, including sofosbuvir (Sovaldi) and simeprevir (Galexos), and new Hep C treatments in development.
- More surprises ahead for hepatitis C therapy
- Abbvie’s potent combination
- Simeprevir – potential drug interactions
- Simeprevir in HIV co-infection
- Simeprevir + interferon + ribavirin in HCV genotype 4 infection
- Sofosbuvir in co-infection with different genotypes
- Sofosbuvir + ledipasvir – just six weeks of therapy
- Triple therapy with asunaprevir + daclatasvir + BMS-791325
(catie.ca, May 2014, in English and French)
CATIE News: Sleep disturbances and hepatitis C
German researchers have found that the fatigue that people with hepatitis C sometimes experience may be caused by sleep disturbances.
The participants in the study included 39 women. 32 women had a current or past hepatitis C infection and 19 women were Hep C negative. All of the participants with Hep C had become infected several decades ago and had minimal liver damage. Participants filled out medical surveys and wore a device that recorded their activities for five days.
The women with current or past hepatitis C were more likely to experience:
- Fatigue
- Poor quality sleep
- Daytime sleepiness
- Reduced health-related quality of life
A unique finding of this study is that the participants had only mild liver disease but still had sleep related issues. Additional research is needed to discover the precise reasons for disturbed sleep in people with hepatitis C; however, as new more effective hepatitis C treatments become available it is hoped that more people will be cured of hepatitis C and sleep disturbances will be less common. (catie.ca, April 2014, in English and French)
Any alcohol use linked to increased liver damage for people with Hep C and HIV coinfection
People with Hep C alone or HIV alone were more likely to have advanced liver damage if they drank more alcohol but people with both Hep C and HIV had a greater risk of advanced liver damage with any alcohol use, reported researchers in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Participants, who were drawn from the U.S. Veterans Aging Cohort Study, were grouped into the following categories:
- People with HIV (1410 participants)
- People with Hep C (296 participants)
- People coinfected with Hep C and HIV (701 participants)
- People who do not have HIV or Hep C (1158 participants)
Alcohol use was categorized into “non-hazardous drinking”, “hazardous or binge drinking” and diagnoses of alcohol abuse or alcoholism.
Within each group, the rate of advanced liver damage increased with each alcohol use category. For all categories, advanced liver damage was more common among HIV-positive versus HIV-negative people and for Hep C-positive versus Hep C-negative people. However, people coinfected with Hep C and HIV were 14 times more likely than people without Hep C or HIV to be at risk for developing advanced liver damage, even for those whose drinking was considered “non-hazardous”.
This was a large cross-sectional study. In a cross-sectional study the data is collected at only one point in time and cannot be used to make the connection between cause and effect. However, it can suggest links and areas for further study. (HIVandhepatitis.com, May 2014, in English)