PMID- 18088238
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20080414
LR  - 20181201
IS  - 1352-0504 (Print)
IS  - 1352-0504 (Linking)
VI  - 15
IP  - 1
DP  - 2008 Jan
TI  - Old and emerging therapies in chronic hepatitis C: an update.
PG  - 2-11
AB  - The main goal of therapy in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is to achieve a 
      sustained virological response currently defined as undetectable HCV-RNA in 
      peripheral blood determined with the most sensitive polymerase chain reaction 
      technique 24 weeks after the end of treatment. This goal is practically 
      equivalent with eradication of HCV infection and cure of the underlying 
      HCV-induced liver disease. The current standard in hepatitis C treatment consists 
      in combination regimens of pegylated interferon-alpha (Peg-INF-alpha) with 
      Ribavirin (RBV). Such treatment schemes are quite successful in patients with HCV 
      genotypes 2 and 3 infections achieving HCV eradication rates of 75-90%. However, 
      they are much less effective in patients with genotypes 1 and 4 infections with 
      eradication rates ranging between 45% and 52%. Moreover, they have several, and 
      sometimes severe, adverse effects and contraindications, further limiting their 
      efficacy and applicability in an appreciable number of patients with chronic 
      HCV-induced liver disease. Therefore, the need for improvement of existing 
      therapies and for development of new effective, safe and tolerable drugs is a 
      matter of great clinical relevance and importance. In this article, recent 
      improvements in the current standard of therapy with IFN-alpha and RBV in various 
      subsets of patients with chronic hepatitis C and in the clinical development of 
      new emerging drugs, particularly small molecules, will be reviewed and commented. 
      The article is divided in two main parts: (i) improvements in the standard 
      combination therapies and schemes of approved Peg-INF-alpha with RBV and 
      expectations from new interferons, interferon inducers and alternatives to RBV; 
      (ii) new drugs for HCV in clinical development focusing mostly on specific 
      inhibitors of HCV and less so on other drugs including immune therapies.
FAU - Deutsch, M
AU  - Deutsch M
AD  - Academic Department of Internal Medicine, Hippokration General Hospital, Athens, 
      Greece. kostam@ath.forthnet.gr
FAU - Hadziyannis, S J
AU  - Hadziyannis SJ
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Review
PL  - England
TA  - J Viral Hepat
JT  - Journal of viral hepatitis
JID - 9435672
RN  - 0 (Antiviral Agents)
RN  - 0 (Interferon alpha-2)
RN  - 0 (Interferon-alpha)
RN  - 0 (Recombinant Proteins)
RN  - 49717AWG6K (Ribavirin)
SB  - IM
MH  - Antiviral Agents/therapeutic use
MH  - Drug Evaluation, Preclinical/trends
MH  - Drug Therapy, Combination
MH  - Hepatitis C, Chronic/*therapy
MH  - Humans
MH  - Immunotherapy
MH  - Interferon alpha-2
MH  - Interferon-alpha/therapeutic use
MH  - Recombinant Proteins
MH  - Ribavirin/therapeutic use
RF  - 67
EDAT- 2007/12/20 09:00
MHDA- 2008/04/15 09:00
CRDT- 2007/12/20 09:00
PHST- 2007/12/20 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2008/04/15 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2007/12/20 09:00 [entrez]
AID - JVH887 [pii]
AID - 10.1111/j.1365-2893.2007.00887.x [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - J Viral Hepat. 2008 Jan;15(1):2-11. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2893.2007.00887.x.