Thursday, April 30, 2009

Study finds new Hepatitis C combination therapy more effective than standard therapy
By Kelly Winget, DCRI Communications

For patients with chronic Hepatitis C virus (HCV), the standard treatment lasts 48 weeks and only between 38 and 46 percent of the patients will have undetectable levels of the virus 24 weeks after the end of the treatment.

In a new study led by the DCRI's John McHutchison, MD, researchers found adding a new drug to the standard treatment significantly improved the rate of patients who had no detectable levels of the virus after 24 week. With the addition of the new drug, patients were able to achieve the results in half the time of the standard treatment.

The results appear in the April 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The study focused only on patients with genotype 1 HCV, which is the most common type in North America and Europe. The study enrolled 263 patients at 37 sites across the U.S.

Approximately 180 million people worldwide are believed to have Hepatitis C, and it is the leading cause for liver transplants in the U.S. The standard treatment is to give patients a combination of peginterferon and ribavirin for 48 weeks.

For the study, researchers were testing the safety and effectiveness of adding the new anti-viral drug telaprevir to the standard combination therapy.

They found that 61 percent of patients who received the study drug for 12 weeks and then the standard therapy for 24 weeks had no detectable levels of HCV, compared to 41 percent of patients who had no detectable level of the virus and received the standard therapy for 48 weeks.

Although there was only a small subgroup of black patients in the study, researchers also found significant improvements in those patients who were treated with both the study drug and the standard therapy, compared to just the standard therapy.

However, more patients who received the study drug therapy discontinued treatment, most often due to developing a rash. Guidelines for managing the rash have been included for future studies involving telaprevir.

The DCRI's Andrew Muir, MD, was also involved with the study.

Click here to read the full study.