duration of SOC

[drofi]

There is a new paper from Austria about duration of treatment for different genotypes. It is a critical review of several papers about individualised therapy.
Sorry, it is written in German language, but a good paper and nice overview about the available publications, many of them written in English.

http://www.kup.at/kup/pdf/6497.pdf

Regards, drofi

[Uplink]

Here is that English abstract:

"Current standard treatment of chronic hepatitis C consists of a combination of a pegylated interferon plus ribavirin. Treatment duration differs between different genotypes and is 48 weeks for genotypes 1 and 4 and 24 weeks for genotypes 2 and 3. It has been shown that the probability of achieving a sustained virologic response (SVR) depends on the rapidity of decline of serum viral load. Therefore, several trials conducted during the past few years
investigated whether treatment could be shortened in patients with a rapid virologic response (PCR negative at week 4). Another question was whether prolongation of treatment could be beneficial for patients with a slow decline of viral load. In this article the results of these studies are discussed in detail.
– To summarize, we recommend that genotype 1-patients who show a rapid virologic response are treated for 24 weeks only if relevant side effects are present or if the patient does not wish further treatment. Treatment in patients with a positive PCR at week 12 (but a ≥ 2log10 decline from baseline) should be prolonged to 72 weeks. The duration of treatment in genotype 2 or 3 patients with rapid virologic response should only be shortened to 12–
16 weeks if the patient suffers from relevant side effects or does not wish further therapy. The prolongation of treatment to 48 weeks in patients with genotype 2 or 3 is indicated in rare cases only, as no results of prospective trials are available."
J Gastroenterol Hepatol Erkr 2007; 5 (2): 17–24.

[desrt]

The paper contains an English translation of the introduction with a four sentence summary of the conclusions.

[zazza]

Thanks, drofi! You have given me good links to German papers before! I will check this one as well.