The effect of early virological response in health‐related quality of life in HCV‐infected patients

Abstract

Twenty-nine HCV-infected patients were treated with pegylated interferon alpha. Diagnosis was based on serum HCV RNA-PCR positive results and liver biopsy. All patients had elevated serum levels of alanine aminotransferase at the time of the study, but liver disease was compensated. Patients were evaluated at baseline treatment and after 4 and 12 weeks of antiviral treatment with the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey. The Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview was used to exclude previous or current psychiatric diagnoses. Both patients and psychiatrists were blind to the HCV RNA status, and serum HCV RNA test results only became available after the visit at week 12. After antiviral treatment, 16 patients (55.2%) were classified as nonresponders and 13 (44.8%) were classified as responders. When compared to nonresponders, responders had a greater improvement in the HRQOL scores for the mental health domain (P < .019). Differences in other domains were not significant. The present study confirms that active viral infection is one possible reason for the poor Health-Related Quality of Life in this population.

Altered quality of life in the early stages of chronic hepatitis C is due to the virus itself

“…However, this could be attributed to a reduction in inflammatory activity and even to partial regression of fibrosis and, subsequently, of disease severity, as a recent study showed [28]. Nevertheless, some studies have suggested that HRQOL improves even during antiviral therapy, at early virologic response [7,29], which supports the hypothesis of viral infection itself as the causative factor of HRQOL impairment.…”

Quality of life considerations for patients with chronic hepatitis C

“…Various studies have shown that HRQoL improves after SVR has been achieved [14,15,17–19]. A recent study of HRQoL in 29 patients receiving PEG‐IFN‐α showed that the 13 patients who achieved SVR after 12 weeks of treatment had significantly improved mental health summary scores on the SF‐36 [14].…”

Gaps in the achievement of effectiveness of HCV treatment in national VA practice

“…This has been associated with improvement in health-related quality of life; hepatic histological features; and even a reduction in long-term outcomes such as cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, and mortality [1][2][3][4]. Currently, the recommended antiviral treatment for HCV is a combination of pegylated-interferon (PEG-INF) and ribavirin.…”