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With the advent of highly effective and safe hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment regimens there is an opportunity not only to prevent viral transmission but also to assess long-term outcomes of treatment. However, because these regimens are expensive, their uptake in clinical practice has been limited. The argument that the upfront expense is offset by cost savings related to long-term reduction in morbidity and mortality, especially in cirrhotic patients, has been based mainly on national registries and retrospective studies.
Now, investigators in France have conducted the first large, prospective study of HCV-infected cirrhotic patients to evaluate the impact of sustained virologic response (SVR) on long-term outcomes. A total of 1323 patien…