Dr. Ira Jacobson on the New Standard of Care for Hepatitis C

In this video, Ira Jacobson, MD, chief of the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, discusses the new standard of care for hepatitis C patients: triple therapy including one of the recently approved protease inhibitors (telaprevir or boceprevir) along with pegylated interferon and ribavirin. He explains that this triple therapy has dramatically increased cure rates and allowed many patients to cut their treatment period in half. In addition, he describes some of the ongoing research into several dozen other drugs for hepatitis C, some of which hold out the promise of interferon-free therapy regimens. The interview was shot at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in Washington, DC.