Refine
Document Type
- Article (2)
Language
- English (2)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (2)
Keywords
- direct-acting antivirals (1)
- ectosomes (1)
- exosomes (1)
- extracellular vesicles (1)
- fatigue (1)
- guidelines (1)
- microparticles (1)
- microvesicles (1)
- minimal information requirements (1)
- reproducibility (1)
- rigor (1)
- standardization (1)
- work productivity (1)
Institute
- Georg-Speyer-Haus (1)
- Medizin (1)
Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) such as quality of life and work productivity are important for measuring patient's experience. We assessed PROs during and after treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients.Data were obtained from a phase 3 open label study of sofosbuvir and ribavirin (SOF + RBV) with and without interferon (IFN). Patients completed 4 PRO assessment instruments (SF-36, Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue, Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire- HCV, Work Productivity and Activity-Specific Health Problem) before, during, and after treatment.A total of 533 patients with chronic HCV were enrolled; 28.9% treatment-naïve, 23.1% cirrhotic, 219 received IFN + SOF + RBV and 314 received IFN-free SOF + RBV. At baseline, there were no differences in PROs between the IFN-free and IFN-containing treatment arms (all P > 0.05). During treatment, patients receiving IFN + SOF + RBV had a substantial impairment in their PROs (up to -24.4% by treatment week 12, up to -8.3% at week 4 post-treatment). The PRO decrements seen in the SOF + RBV arm were smaller in magnitude (up to -7.1% by treatment week 12), and all returned to baseline or improved by post-treatment week 4. By 12 weeks after treatment cessation, patients who achieved sustained viral response-12 showed some improvement of PRO scores regardless of the regimen (up to +7.1%, P < 0.0001) or previous treatment experience. In multivariate analysis, the use of IFN was independently associated with lower PROs.IFN-based regimens have a profoundly negative impact to PROs. By contrast, the impact of RBV on these PROs is relatively modest. Achieving HCV cure is associated with improvement of most of the PRO scores.
The last decade has seen a sharp increase in the number of scientific publications describing physiological and pathological functions of extracellular vesicles (EVs), a collective term covering various subtypes of cell-released, membranous structures, called exosomes, microvesicles, microparticles, ectosomes, oncosomes, apoptotic bodies, and many other names. However, specific issues arise when working with these entities, whose size and amount often make them difficult to obtain as relatively pure preparations, and to characterize properly. The International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) proposed Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles (“MISEV”) guidelines for the field in 2014. We now update these “MISEV2014” guidelines based on evolution of the collective knowledge in the last four years. An important point to consider is that ascribing a specific function to EVs in general, or to subtypes of EVs, requires reporting of specific information beyond mere description of function in a crude, potentially contaminated, and heterogeneous preparation. For example, claims that exosomes are endowed with exquisite and specific activities remain difficult to support experimentally, given our still limited knowledge of their specific molecular machineries of biogenesis and release, as compared with other biophysically similar EVs. The MISEV2018 guidelines include tables and outlines of suggested protocols and steps to follow to document specific EV-associated functional activities. Finally, a checklist is provided with summaries of key points.