Hepatitis C Blog - Page 2 of 764 -

Precision Screening May Improve Surveillance in HCC

Posted on September 18, 2017 by AlanSeptember 18, 2017

During a presentation at the 2017 International Liver Cancer Association Annual Conference, Amit G. Singal, MD, MS, stressed that precision screening for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) could improve on current screening techniques through its risk-stratifying approach.

The current standard of care for HCC surveillance is ultrasound with or without serum biomarker including alpha fetoprotein. Not only is this approach highly operator-dependent, but patient characteristics such as obesity, liver nodularity and echogenicity, and presence of ascites can limit accuracy.

“The highest rates of HCC are in east Asia and Africa, primarily driven by high rates of hepatitis B in those areas. While the incidence of HCC is lower in the United States and Europe, it is gaining a lot of attention because HCC has the largest increasing incidence among all solid tumors over the past 10 years as assessed by SEER,” said Singal, medical director of the Liver Tumor Program at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “Some projections have HCC becoming a top 5 cause of cancer-related death over the next decade in the United States. One of the key ways to curb this increased mortality is to increase rates of early tumor detection and curative treatment.”

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New vaccine to treat global viruses in the offing

Posted on September 18, 2017 by AlanSeptember 18, 2017

In a discovery that may lead to a vaccine against Zika, dengue and Hepatitis C viruses, scientists have found that our body’s key immune cells can recognise many different viruses through a single receptor.

The findings by researchers at University of Southampton in the UK could change the way viruses are targeted by vaccines.

Researchers have shown that natural killer cells (NK cells), which are a fundamental part of the body’s immune system, can recognise many different viruses including global pathogens such as Zika, dengue and Hepatitis C viruses, through a single receptor called KIR2DS2.

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Study Shows DAAs Are Not Associated With Increased HCC Recurrence Risk

Posted on September 18, 2017 by AlanSeptember 18, 2017

Direct acting antivirals (DAA) are a novel and completely oral hepatitis C therapy that is associated with a high response rate. DAAs are used in most patients being treated for hepatitis C, including those with decompensated cirrhosis.

This type of treatment has now completely replaced interferon-based therapy for patients with hepatitis C, a therapy which was also associated with a decrease in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) incidence in 40% to 50% of patients

Initially, it was thought that DAAs would also decrease HCC recurrence, but a multicenter, single-arm, retrospective study out of Spain demonstrated an increase in the early recurrence of HCC following treatment with DAAs. Among 58 patients with a history of HCC and a complete response early recurrence was observed in 16 patients (27.6%) when treated with DAA.

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Iowa prisons brace for possible uptick in HIV, hepatitis C cases as opioid epidemic swells | Brianne Pfannenstiel, bpfannenst@dmreg.com

Posted on September 18, 2017 by AlanSeptember 18, 2017

Iowa’s Department of Corrections is bracing for a possible uptick in the number of inmates infected with HIV and hepatitis C as a result of the opioid epidemic — an outcome that could put pressure on an already cash-strapped system.

State public health officials say they have yet to link any new HIV infections to opioid use, but they remain “vigilant” after nearly 200 people in rural Indiana contracted the viruses by sharing needles to inject prescription pain medications in 2015. But they do attribute an “alarming” rise in hepatitis C infections to the epidemic.

Jerome Greenfield, the Department of Corrections’ health services administrator, said the department will need a $1 million budget increase going into the 2019 budget year to accommodate rising pharmaceutical costs for things like HIV and hepatitis C, as well as a generally aging prison population.

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Get Help Along Your Treatment Journey!

Posted on September 18, 2017 by AlanSeptember 18, 2017

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Severe Mental Illness and the Prevalence of Infectious Diseases

Posted on September 17, 2017 by AlanSeptember 17, 2017 2

Note: This makes sense since people with mental illness may be self-medicating with drugs.

Although the prevalence of infectious diseases is higher in people with severe mental illness, further research is lacking. A recent population-based study in Sweden found an increased prevalence of HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C in people with severe mental illness, and that substance misuse contributed most to this increase.

Severe mental illness is a broad term to describe psychiatric disorders that are persistent and disabling. Examples of severe mental illness are schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Individuals with severe mental illness have mortality rates 2-3 times those of the general population and a reduction in life expectancy of up to 20 years. Evidence suggests that the prevalence of blood-borne viruses (BBVs) is higher in individuals with severe mental illness. BBVs include diseases like HIV and hepatitis B and C. However, studies regarding infectious disease prevalence in mental health research are lacking. Therefore, Bauer-Staeb and colleagues performed a study to examine the prevalence of HIV and hepatitis B and C in individuals with severe mental illness

The population-based, nationwide study used longitudinal data from 6,815,931 Swedish adults. Severe mental illness was defined as a clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, or other psychotic illnesses. BBV status was defined as having a diagnosis of HIV or hepatitis B or C.

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Primary care can manage hep C infections with DAAs | Mark Fuerst

Posted on September 15, 2017 by AlanSeptember 15, 2017

The majority of patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) can be safely, effectively managed in a primary care setting, according to a new study.

Direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy for HCV infection has resulted in high rates of disease cure, however, not enough specialists currently are available to provide care, stated researchers led by Sarah Kattakuzhy, MD, assistant professor with the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

“We found that HCV treatment can be decentralized to facilitate greater therapeutic capacity for the many patients who remain untreated,” Kattakuzhy told Medical Economics.

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High prices of DAAs mean there’s been little progress towards achieving WHO target of eliminating HCV | 2030 Michael Carter

Posted on September 15, 2017 by AlanSeptember 15, 2017

Only a handful of countries are on course to achieve the World Health Organization (WHO) target of eliminating hepatitis C virus (HCV) as a major public health concern by 2030, according to a study published in the Journal of Virus Eradication. Investigators estimated progress towards elimination by examining 2016 data on rates of cure after therapy with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), HCV-related deaths and new HCV infections. An overall reduction in prevalence of 0.71% was observed in the 91 countries included in the study, and global prevalence fell by just 0.4%.

“Some countries are treating a high percentage of patients, with significant reductions in HCV epidemic size,” comment the authors. “By contrast other countries have very low rates of treatment, and new HCV infections are driving the HCV epidemics.”

Cure rates considerably outpaced the rate of new infections in North America and North Africa/Middle East. But the opposite was true in sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Eastern Europe.

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