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A major drawback of current therapies for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is poor tolerability of adverse effects, mainly caused by peginterferon. Previous studies of interferon-free HCV regimens were early phase trials (JW Gastroenterol Jan 18 2012 and JW Gastroenterol Sep 30 2011); now results are available from two industry-sponsored, open-label, phase 2a trials in patients with HCV genotypes 1, 2, and 3.
In the first study, investigators randomized 40 treatment-naive patients with genotype 2 or 3 in a 1:1:1:1 ratio to four groups, all of which received sofosbuvir — an oral nucleotide HCV polymerase inhibitor — (400 mg daily) and ribavirin (1000–1200 mg daily) for 12 weeks. Three groups also received peginterferon (180 µg weekly…