Do Race and Ethnicity Affect Response to Direct-Acting Anti-HCV Antivirals?

Interferon-based therapies for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection had lower response rates in black and Hispanic patients than in white patients. Limited data from registration trials primarily comprising white patients suggest no such disparity in treatment response with use of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). To investigate this issue in a real-world setting, researchers compared response rates across race and Hispanic ethnicity groups among 21,095 HCV-infected patients in the Veterans Affairs healthcare system.

Anti-HCV regimens included sofosbuvir, simeprevir plus sofosbuvir, ledipasvir/sofosbuvir, and paritaprevir/ombitasvir/ritonavir plus dasabuvir. Fifty-two percent of patients were white, 29% were black, 6% we…