Hepatitis C

There is a need for cost-effective treatments for HCV in low-income countries.

Direct-acting antivirals have been a major milestone in the treatment of hepatitis C virus, new data show they also work in nearly all children, without serious adverse events.

Raising awareness about proper treatment adherence is one method of working toward eliminating hepatitis C.

More than 90% of patients with hepatitis C who sought care at a comprehensive community health clinic completed treatment, and three-quarters of those returned for sustained virologic response testing.

“[sCD163] showed a significant decline in eradicated cases of HCC after treatment,” the study authors wrote.

There were no drug-related serious adverse events found in the study.

Treatment use was linked to an increase in hepatitis B flare among women, but not men.

Most patients who were treated with direct-acting antivirals for hepatitis C virus infection saw improvement in oral lichen planus symptoms, including 6 of 10 who saw complete remission.

Individuals with malnutrition had higher mortality rates, as well as higher rates of sepsis and pneumonia.

The investigators monitored any retinopathy events in hepatitis C patients, including those that were untreated and those being treated with PegIFN/RBV.

Scaling-up HCV screening for all inpatients admitted for psychiatric purposes may be more cost-effective compared with a risk-based approach in high-resource countries.

Interferon-based therapy is generable intolerable for the older population.

NAFLD can be common among those with diabetes or those who are obese.

Patients with subjective vision changes should be referred for fundus examination.

Researchers comb through the data from more than 50,000 liver cirrhosis patients in Japan.

Among 85 children with beta-thalassemia major and ≥5 years since primary vaccination, 23 were found to be seronegative.

Use of the vasoconstrictor was associated with increased risk for death due to respiratory disorders.

Albumin infusions did not result in statistically significant differences in predefined study endpoints.

Investigators noted a higher prevalence of nuclear sclerotic cataracts in infected patients versus uninfected patients.

Those who injected drugs and shared needles were more likely to have been screened for HCV if using mobile A-CHESS platform.

Nonanastomotic biliary strictures occurred in 6% of the patients in the machine-perfusion group, while the complication occurred in 18% of the control group.

Vitamin D supplements did not change the biochemical markers significantly for hepatitis C patients with vitamin D insufficiencies.

Investigators conclude improvements in kidney transplantation may require significant interventions.

A recent study reports that obese patients experienced high immunogenicity compared with those of normal weight.

Women infected with either virus generally experienced higher incidences of premature births compared with healthy women.