All-Oral Interferon-Free Treatment for Patients with Hepatitis C

For patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections, interferon-containing drug regimens require subcutaneous injections and can cause serious adverse effects. Two new reports suggest that all-oral drug regimens for treating HIV-negative patients with chronic HCV infection might be close at hand.

One study involved sofosbuvir, an oral nucleotide polymerase inhibitor. Of 10 patients with genotype 2 or 3 infections who received 12-week courses of oral sofosbuvir plus ribavirin, all exhibited sustained virologic responses (no detectable serum HCV RNA) at 24 weeks after completing treatment. Of 10 patients who received sofosbuvir monotherapy, 6 had sustained virologic responses. The researchers also studied sofosbuvir plus ribavirin in 35 patie…