Article
Delayed HCV Treatment in Coinfected Patients Can Prove Fatal
Modeling data discussed at a press conference at the 2015 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections showed that delaying HCV treatment, consequent to the high cost of the newer antiviral regimens, could prove fatal in patients coninfected with HIV.
Delaying hepatitis C (HCV) treatment in patients who also have HIV increases the risk of liver complications and death even if the therapy is successful, a researcher said.
In a computer modeling study, treating a patient in METAVIR stage F3 disease instead of stage F2 increased the risk of liver-related death from 5% to 10%, according to Cindy Zahnd, a research assistant at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
And if successful HCV treatment was delayed until stage F4, the risk of liver-related death rose to 25%, compared with therapy at stage F2, Zahnd said here at the 2015 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
Link to the article in Medpage Today: http://bit.ly/1E9mogh
