High rates of sustained virologic response at 12 wks, regardless of drug use at baseline or during tx
TUESDAY, Aug. 9, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Elbasvir-grazoprevir is effective for patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) receiving opioid-agonist therapy (OAT), according to a study published online Aug. 9 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Gregory J. Dore, M.D., from The Kirby Institute in Sydney, and colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial involving 301 treatment-naive patients with chronic HCV genotype 1, 4, or 6 infection. Participants were randomized to an immediate-treatment group (ITG), which received elbasvir-grazoprevir for 12 weeks, or a deferred-treatment group (DTG), which received placebo for 12 weeks, no treatment for four weeks, then elbasvir-grazoprevir for 12 weeks.
The researchers found that the sustained virologic response at 12 weeks (SVR12) was 91.5 and 89.5 percent in the ITG and the active phase of the DTG, respectively. Drug use at baseline or during treatment had no effect on SVR12 or adherence to HCV treatment. Six of 18 patients with post-treatment viral recurrence through 24-week follow-up had probable reinfection. Assuming that the probable reinfections were successes, SVR12 was 94.0 percent in the ITG. One of 201 patients in the ITG and one of 100 in the placebo-phase DTG discontinued treatment due to an adverse event.
“Patients with HCV infection who were receiving OAT and treated with elbasvir-grazoprevir exhibited high rates of SVR12, regardless of ongoing drug use,” the authors write.
Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including Merck & Co., which manufactures elbasvir-grazoprevir and funded the study.
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