Once-daily treatment for eight or 12 weeks yields high rates of sustained virologic response
WEDNESDAY, Jan. 31, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Once-daily treatment with glecaprevir-pibrentasvir appears safe and effective for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1 or 3, according to a study published in the Jan. 25 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Stefan Zeuzem, M.D., from University Hospital Frankfurt in Germany, and colleagues evaluated the efficacy and safety of eight-week and 12-week courses of treatment with 300 mg of glecaprevir plus 120 mg of pibrentasvir in 1,208 patients without cirrhosis who had HCV genotype 1 or 3 infection.
The researchers found that the rate of sustained virologic response at 12 weeks was 99.1 percent among genotype 1-infected patients in the eight-week group and 99.7 percent in the 12-week group. At 12 weeks, genotype 3-infected patients who were treated with glecaprevir-pibrentasvir had a rate of sustained virologic response of 95 percent, while those treated with sofosbuvir-daclatasvir had a 97 percent response. Patients treated with glecaprevir-pibrentasvir for eight weeks had a rate of 95 percent. No more than 1 percent of patients in any group discontinued treatment due to adverse events.
“Once-daily treatment with glecaprevir-pibrentasvir for either eight weeks or 12 weeks achieved high rates of sustained virologic response among patients with HCV genotype 1 or 3 infection who did not have cirrhosis,” the authors write.
The study was supported by AbbVie, the manufacturer of glecaprevir-pibrentasvir.
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