Variation between Canadian centres in the uptake of treatment for hepatitis C by patients coinfected with HIV: a prospective cohort study.

2014 | CMAJ Open

Abstract:

BACKGROUND:

Uptake of treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) is low in Canada despite its publicly funded health care system. We explored the uptake of HCV treatment within the Canadian Co-infection Cohort to determine if some treatment centres have been more successful than others at starting patients with HIV-HCV coinfection on HCV treatment.

METHODS:

We estimated the variation between 16 centres in the uptake of HCV treatment using a Weibull time-to-event model with adjustment for patient characteristics that are thought likely to influence the uptake of treatment. We asked the principal investigator at each centre about access to hepatitis-related specialists and services and the importance of various criteria when determining if a patient with HIV-HCV coinfection should receive treatment for HCV.

RESULTS:

Among 681 untreated patients in the Canadian Co-infection Cohort, 163 patients with HIV-HCV coinfection started HCV treatment over a period of 1827 patient-years (9 per 100 patient-years). Even after adjustment for case mix, there was still appreciable variation in treatment uptake between centres, with mean hazard ratios of 0.43 (95% credible interval 0.11-1.3) and 3.6 (95% credible interval 1.7-8.4) for the centres least and most likely to start an average patient with HIV-HCV coinfection on HCV treatment. The most important criteria reported by principal investigators for determining eligibility for treatment were severity of fibrosis, current psychiatric comorbidities, current alcohol intake, past HCV treatment and a history of reinfection with HCV. However, the opinions were wide-ranging: 8 of the 15 criteria elicited both the responses "less important" and "very important."

INTERPRETATION:

The magnitude of the centre effects and diverse opinions about the importance of treatment eligibility criteria suggest that provider-related barriers to HCV treatment uptake are as important as patient-related barriers.

Text or Node

Young J

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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Variation between Canadian centres in the uptake of treatment for hepatitis C by patients coinfected with HIV: a prospective cohort study.

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