Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Adding telaprevir improves acute hepatitis C treatment for HIV-positive men

Adding telaprevir improves acute hepatitis C treatment for HIV-positive men

Liz Highleyman

Published: 12 March 2013
 
Adding telaprevir (Incivo or Incivek) to pegylated interferon and ribavirin shortens the duration of treatment and increases the likelihood of a cure for HIV-positive men with acute sexually transmitted hepatitis C virus (HCV), according to study findings presented last week at the 20th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2013) in Atlanta.

Since the early 2000s, researchers have reported outbreaks of apparently sexually transmitted HCV among HIV-positive gay and bisexual men, first in the UK and continental Europe and later in Australia and the US.

Acute hepatitis C often has no symptoms – or general symptoms like fever that can be mistaken for flu – so most people do not seek treatment when they become infected. HIV-positive people are in a unique position because those on antiretroviral therapy (ART) are advised to receive regular liver function tests to monitor for drug toxicity. Unexplained elevation of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and other liver enzymes should trigger viral hepatitis testing, which may reveal recent infection.

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View abstract 156LB on the conference website.

A webcast of the session in which this research was presented, Advances in ARV and Anti-Hepatitis C Virus Therapy, is available on the conference website.

 

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