Thursday, July 31, 2014

Faster, Easier Cures for Hepatitis C

(AIDS) By FDA News Release Cross-posted from FDA Consumer UpdatesTransformative advances in drug treatments approved by the Food and Drug Administration are giving the 3.2 million Americans with chronic hepatitis C a chance for a longer, healthier life without the virus. Thats welcome news for baby boomerswho make up three of four adults with the hepatitis C virusand millions of other Americans, many of whom dont yet know they are infected and carriers.
Hepatitis C can be cured, and todays drug therapies are very effective and easier for patients to take, says Jeffrey S. Murray, M.D., the deputy director of the Division of Antiviral Products in FDAs Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Murray is an internist who specializes in infectious diseases.
A Preventable and Curable Disease
Hepatitis (inflammation of the liver) refers to a group of viral infections that affect the liver. The most common types are hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Each is caused by a different virus.
Hepatitis C is the most common chronic blood-borne infection in the United States. There is no vaccine for this disease, but hepatitis C can be prevented by avoiding behaviors that can spread the virusincluding sharing needles, syringes or other equipment to inject drugs.
A diagnosis of hepatitis C no longer means months and months of painful drug injections, which for decades were the only option. Science is making strides in therapies, giving patients new alternatives.
Interferon-based injections often make patients feel ill and give them flulike symptoms, Murray says. The treatment by interferon also lasts six months to a year, and cures only 40% to 50% of hepatitis C patients.
Patients with very advanced liver disease couldnt take the traditional treatment because often those injections could make them worse, he adds. Now, patients can treat their hepatitis C with only pills drug combinations that are faster and have a higher cure rate.
Todays pills have double the viral cure rates90% to 100%in just in 12 weeks time. Reducing the treatment from a year to three months is a huge advantage for people with hepatitis C, especially because its easier to swallow a pill than to get an injection, Murray says.
The new regimens include Sovaldi (sofosbuvir), which is the first drug approved to treat certain types of hepatitis C infection without the need to co-administer interferon. In recent years, FDA has also approved three protease inhibitorsOlysio (simeprevir), Victrelis (boceprevir) and Incivek (telaprevir)to treat chronic hepatitis C virus infection. Olysio is a protease inhibitor that blocks a specific protein the hepatitis C virus needs to replicate. The drug is a component of a combination antiviral treatment regimen.
FDA provides information through aHepatitis e-mail list, along with notices of upcoming public events, such as advisory committee meetings, and opportunities to comment on policies and issues that affect people with hepatitis B or C.
Baby Boomers and Hepatitis C
For most people, hepatitis is a silent disease until it causes substantial damage to the liver. That process may take several years, and can lead to liver failure, liver transplantation and liver cancer.
Hepatitis C is a bit like smoking, the longer youve had it, the higher your risk of developing complicationsin this case, liver cancer and end-stage liver disease. Its a progressive disease that takes years, even decades, before the patient develops cirrhosis or cancer, Murray says. The good news is that when you cure hepatitis C, you also lower its risks, though you dont completely erase the years of damage to your liver.
Once infected with the hepatitis C virus, nearly 8 in 10 untreated people remain infected for life, according to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Three in four patients with chronic hepatitis C are baby boomers (people born from 1945 to 1965), and many became infected before the virus was identified and the blood supply was tested for the disease. Thats why its important for baby boomersthere are 76.4 million of them, according to the U.S. Census Bureauto take a simple blood test for hepatitis C.
When it comes to hepatitis C, the outlook for the future is better, but the past is catching up with usespecially if you are a baby boomer, Murray says. Still, this is a fortuitous time because better hepatitis C treatments are becoming available just as the patient population at risk of long-term complications is about to peak. There are treatments for chronic hepatitis and many reasons to get tested now more than ever because of the availability of safe and effective therapies.
This article appears onFDAs Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.
July 28, 2014
Source: www.aids.gov

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