Is STAT-C the New Treatment for Hepatitis C?

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Is STAT-C the New Treatment for Hepatitis C?

STAT-C stands for Specifically Targeted Antiviral Therapy for hepatitis C and is the approach that many experts think is the future for treating chronic hepatitis C. The current therapy for most people, a combination of pegylated interferon with ribavirin, basically tries to "rev up" or stimulate the body's immune response to fight the infection. The STAT-C approach is to use drugs that directly interfere with hepatitis C virus replication (the process of copying itself) by targeting specific enzymes. When the virus can't reproduce, the liver can be allowed to heal. If viral replication is stopped early enough, the devastating

complications of chronic hepatitis C may be avoided.

STAT-C drugs are currently available only in clinical trials. Here are brief descriptions of some now being studied:

Protease inhibitors. Hepatitis C viruses use an essential enzyme called protease (pro-tee-aze) during their replication process. Certain drugs can interfere with this enzyme which stops the virus' ability to copy itself. Some drugs of this type that have reached late clinical development for treating chronic hepatitis C are telaprevir (probably the most advanced in clinical trials), boceprevir and ciluprevir. Polymerase inhibitors. Each time hepatitis C viruses replicate, they use an enzyme called polymerase to copy their RNA (genetic code). Polymerase inhibitors are drugs that interfere with polymerase. Two types of polymerase inhibitors target the polymerase in different ways: nucleoside analog polymerase inhibitors (valopicitabine and R1626) and nonnucleoside analog polymerase inhibitors (HCV-796). None are available outside of clinical trials at this time.

Don't give up on your interferon and ribavirin just yet. Whatever new STAT-C therapies make it to the clinic are probably going to be given with interferon and ribavirin. In other words, the best way to fight chronic hepatitis C will be to treat with a variety of drugs at the same time. This "cocktail" approach has been successful treating other viral diseases, like HIV.

Researchers hope that treating hepatitis C with a combination of these drugs will increase the treatment success across all genomes, cause less toxicity and side effects, and maybe even allow for a shorter treatment duration.

http://hepatitis.about.com/od/research/a/STATCTX.htm