Hepatitis C Treatment Breakthrough

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CDC 03-23-11

AUSTRALIA; NEW ZEALAND: " Hepatitis C Treatment Breakthrough "

The Age (Melbourne) (03.15.11):: Kate Hagan

While about 250,000 Australians have hepatitis C virus, just 5 percent choose to

initiate therapy. Standard interferon and ribavirin treatment creates a

sustained virologic response in up to 50 percent of patients with HCV genotype

1. Many choose a conservative approach due to the side effects of standard

therapy, which can include depression, insomnia, muscle pain, and psychotic

episodes.

The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne recently was one of six hospitals in Australia

and New Zealand to trial an experimental HCV treatment combination that did not

include interferon. The all-oral treatment combined the nucleoside polymerase

inhibitor RG7128 with danoprevir, an NS3/4A protease inhibitor. The trial,

funded by drugmaker Roche, randomly assigned 88 chronic HCV patients to the

combination treatment or placebo.

Results of the dose-escalation trial showed the promise of more effective

treatment, with some patients clearing the virus within two weeks.

One of the trial's investigators, the Alfred's director of gastroenterology,

said the new therapy could be up to 80 percent effective. " The interferon-free

treatment ... will see a lot more people taking up treatment because of the lack

of major side effects, " said associate professor Stuart . " It may also

open up opportunities to increase treatment outside specialist centers in the

hospitals because there is less requirement for intensive care and monitoring of

patients. "

" Introducing this treatment as standard practice is a few years off, but this

study provides a proof-of-concept that it can be effective, " said.

" Treatment, when successful, can not only arrest the progression of the disease

but often it will reduce in severity as the liver remodels itself. "

The study, " Oral Combination Therapy with a Nucleoside Polymerase Inhibitor

(RG7128) and Danoprevir for Chronic Hepatitis C Genotype 1 Infection (INFORM-1):

A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Dose-Escalation Trial, " was

published in the Lancet (2010;376(9751):1467-1475).