Increased uptake and new therapies are needed to avert rising hepatitis C-related end stage liver disease in England: Modelling the predicted impact of treatment under different scenarios

Abstract

If the infected population is left untreated, the number of patients with severe HCV-related disease will continue to increase and represent a substantial future burden on healthcare resources. This can be mitigated by increasing treatment uptake, which will have the greatest impact if implemented quickly.

New metrics for the Lancet Standing Commission on Liver Disease in the UK

“…12 Although the number of people with hepatitis B virus is unknown, the figure is probably similar to those with hepatitis C. 1…”

“…10 Further developments might include appropriately resourced and supported initiatives to move areas of care traditionally delivered within secondary care to primary care, such as hepatitis C treatment, building on innovative models and frameworks already in place. [11][12][13] Substantial work has already been done to raise the profiles of these roles for primary care practitioners. The Lancet Commission publications have provided several recommendations with relevance to primary care.…”

Chronic hepatitis C – what do the new drugs offer and who should get them first?

“…8,9 The advent of new drugs to treat hepatitis C has opened up enormous opportunities to avoid premature mortality and morbidity from liver disease. The constraints of both our current service structures and the cost of therapy impose limitations on our ability to respond but the potential is there and it is now up to clinical teams to respond.…”

Strategies to reduce HCV disease burden and HCV transmission need different models, as what works for end‐stage liver disease may not work for HCV prevalence: a comment on the results presented in JVH Special Issue

“…Critically -these studies as others have carried out [6,7] -illustrate and raise awareness both that liver cancer and ESLD are increasing and that current treatment rates are insufficient to arrest the rise in deaths due to HCV. Furthermore, even if our current treatment regime was replaced with new direct-acting antivirals (DAA) with greater sustained virological response (SVR) for patients with severe and mild disease, trends in liver related deaths are not markedly altered [5,6].…”