What odds of vrial breakthrough if you have to reduce riba or interferon?

[nzkiwilife]

UND at Week 4 but am so anaemic am now on 600mg riba (was 1000mg) daily. anyone know how/if the reduction will impact staying UND? Have googled but nothing specific to my question comes up. Nurse says if it gets much lower they will give me a blood transfusion which I don't want. She said that reducing the dose of riba will not affect my UND status but I don't take anything the nurse says as gospel.
tia

[TexSunflwr]

This is not a link to a study, but to an article about Riva reduction and SVR:
http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/hepatitis-c/hepatitis-c-topics/hcv-treatment/3583-easl-ribavirin-dose-reduction-and-epo-both-work-for-managing-anemia-in-patients-using-boceprevir

"Reducing the dose of ribavirin and adding erythropoietin are both good options for managing anemia in hepatitis C patients treated with boceprevir (Victrelis) triple therapy, according to study findings presented at the 47th International Liver Congress (EASL 2012) this week in Barcelona. A related study found that ribavirin reduction also did not impair cure rates with telaprevir (Incivek)."


Btw, my Ribavirin dosage was reduced to 800mg at about 9 weeks into treatment with Incivek, and I was still undetected at the end of 48 weeks. I am still waiting to find out if I'm SVR or not.

[TexSunflwr]

You are on the triple therapy(Incivek, riba, Interferon) and the protocol for handling anemia on that regimen is to reduce the Ribavirin, but only if the virus is undetected, which you were at 4 weeks. Reducing the Ribavirin at that point shouldn't affect SVR.

I don't currently have a link to the studies that prove that, but this topic has been discussed on many occasions in this forum. I will look for a link to one of those discussions.

[Dannyboi7]

If your on SOC there is always the 80/80/80 rule
Adherence to therapy

Adherence to therapy is one of the most important factors associated with the success of therapy.17 The definition of adherence used here is the 80/80/80 rule, as patients who received more than 80% of IFN, more than 80% of ribavirin, and were treated for more than 80% of the planned duration of treatment are considered adherent. One of the first studies investigating the effect of adherence demonstrated that patients who fulfilled the 80/80/80 rule had a 63% sustained response compared with 52% of those with less than 80% adherence.17 This was statistically significant for HCV genotype 1 patients. Therefore, it is important to reduce side effects and motivate patients to adhere to treatment in order to optimise treatment responses, especially in difficult to treat genotype 1 patients.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1860034/

[orphanedhawk]

It's a crap shoot, meaning nobody can say how it will affect YOU.

I had both my interferon and riba reduced and am SVR.

This virus and our reactions to it are frustrating because not all of us respond in the same way.