Treatment of naïve patients with chronic hepatitis C genotypes 2 and 3 with pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin in a real world setting : relevance for the new era of DAA

  • Evidence based clinical guidelines are implemented to treat patients efficiently that include efficacy, tolerability but also health economic considerations. This is of particular relevance to the new direct acting antiviral agents that have revolutionized treatment of chronic hepatitis C. For hepatitis C genotypes 2/3 interferon free treatment is already available with sofosbuvir plus ribavirin. However, treatment with sofosbuvir-based regimens is 10–20 times more expensive compared to pegylated interferon alfa and ribavirin (PegIFN/RBV). It has to be discussed if PegIFN/RBV is still an option for easy to treat patients. We assessed the treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis C genotypes 2/3 with PegIFN/RBV in a real world setting according to the latest German guidelines. Overall, 1006 patients were recruited into a prospective patient registry with 959 having started treatment. The intention-to-treat analysis showed poor SVR (GT2 61%, GT3 47%) while patients with adherence had excellent SVR in the per protocol analysis (GT2 96%, GT3 90%). According to guidelines, 283 patients were candidates for shorter treatment duration, namely a treatment of 16 weeks (baseline HCV-RNA <800.000 IU/mL, no cirrhosis and RVR). However, 65% of these easy to treat patients have been treated longer than recommended that resulted in higher costs but not higher SVR rates. In conclusion, treatment with PegIFN/RBV in a real world setting can be highly effective yet similar effective than PegIFN± sofosbuvir/RBV in well-selected naïve G2/3 patients. Full adherence to guidelines could be further improved, because it would be important in the new era with DAA, especially to safe resources.

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Author:Benjamin Heidrich, Steffen B. Wiegand, Peter BuggischORCiDGND, Holger Hinrichsen, Ralph Link, Bernd Möller, Klaus H. W. Böker, Gerlinde Teuber, Hartwig Klinker, Elmar Zehnter, Uwe Naumann, Heiner W. Busch, Benjamin MaasoumyORCiDGND, Undine Baum, Svenja Hardtke, Michael P. MannsORCiDGND, Heiner WedemeyerORCiDGND, Jörg Petersen, Markus CornbergORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-351022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0108751
ISSN:1932-6203
Parent Title (English):PLoS One
Publisher:PLoS
Place of publication:Lawrence, Kan.
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2014/10/10
Date of first Publication:2014/10/10
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2014/10/17
Volume:9
Issue:(10):e108751
Page Number:11
Note:
Copyright: © 2014 Heidrich et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
HeBIS-PPN:366249762
Institutes:Medizin / Medizin
Dewey Decimal Classification:6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 4.0