Rate and Factors Affecting Treatment Uptake of Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C in a Tertiary Referral Hospital

Abstract

Current treatment uptake for CHC patients was suboptimal, as a large proportion of patients were either reluctant for treatment or not suitable for the current antiviral therapy. Multidisciplinary interventions are needed in the short term while alternative antiviral therapy is desired in the long term to overcome barriers to treatment.

Targeted hepatitis C screening among ex‐injection drug users in the community

“…). This concurs with previous experience that HCV treatment uptake is low even in specialist clinics . That said, the majority of patients who deferred treatment did so because of mild disease.…”

Cost‐effectiveness of the highly effective direct‐acting antivirals in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C in Hong Kong

“…Pegylated‐interferon alpha and ribavirin (PR) therapy have been the standard of care (SOC) for CHC for over a decade, with a suboptimal sustained virological response (SVR) of approximately 50% in genotype 1 (GT1) CHC patients . However, the uptake of treatment was only around 50% because of the presence of decompensated cirrhosis and concerns or intolerance to side effects …”

Treatment Uptake of Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C: Can We Expect and Do More?

“…In this issue of the journal, Yan et al [12] reported their retrospective study to evaluate the treatment rate of CHC patients and examine the reasons for non-treatment in a tertiary referral center in Hong Kong. Of their enrolled 303 CHC patients, 138 (45.5%) patients received no antiviral therapy.…”

“…Although PegIFN plus ribavirin is cost-effective for the initial treatment of CHC, it is not uncommon that the cost for anti-HCV therapy will lead to patients rejecting therapy, as 12.3% of patients were not treated as reported by Yan et al [12] owing to the strict criteria for full government reimbursed antiviral therapy. In Taiwan, a good example is that the cost of therapy is currently reimbursed by National Health Insurance for 24-48 weeks regimen according to the achieving RVR or not.…”

“…In a study by Yan et al [12], concurrent infection of HBV and HCV in 5.6% of CHC patients is more common where both viruses are endemic [25,26] and no current treatment is approved for this important patient group yet. An open-label, comparative, multicenter study conducted in Taiwan has shown recently that PegIFN 2a plus ribavirin is equally effective in patients with HCV monoinfection (SVR: 77% in genotype 1 and 84% in genotype 2/3) and in those with dual chronic HCV/HBV infection and negative for hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) (SVR: 72% in genotype 1 and 83% in genotype 2/3).…”