Better, Faster Treatment for Hepatitis C

(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Drugs used to treat hepatitis C must be taken over many months and they cause so many unwanted side effects a lot of people give up before the treatment is over.

To add insult to injury, less than half of the people who complete the therapy are actually cured of the disease.

Researchers from the Duke Clinical Research Institute believe adding an anti-viral drug called telaprevir to standard treatment with peginterferon alfa-2a and ribavirin could make a big difference. Their study shows the three-drug therapy not only ups the cure rate, but also significantly cuts the duration of therapy.

“Standard treatment for the most common type of hepatitis C is 48 weeks of a combination of two drugs, peginterferon alfa-2a and ribavirin, which cures less than half of patients and has significant side effects that make it very difficult for some patients to continue their treatment,” study author John McHutchison, M.D., was quoted as saying. “Our study found that by combining the standard therapy with the direct anti-viral drug telaprevir, we could reduce the duration of treatment by 50 percent, to 24 weeks, and, at the same time, improve the cure rate by 50 percent.”

The three-drug combination was tested in 250 patients from 37 centers. Among patients who received the standard drugs for 48 weeks along with telaprevir for 12 weeks, 67 percent were cured. The cure rate was 61 percent for those who took the standard drugs for just 24 weeks, along with 12 weeks of telaprevir.

While telaprevir also has unwanted side effects, the researchers believe the positive results seen for the shorter duration of treatment could bode well for hepatitis C patients, because more people are likely to endure the shorter course of treatment than the longer course.

SOURCE: New England Journal of Medicine, published online April 29, 2009

If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Melissa Medalie at mmedalie@ivanhoe.com