WASHINGTON — Combination therapy to treat patients co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) can achieve a high percentage of virologic end-of-treatment response to the hepatitis infection without affecting suppression of the HIV, researchers reported here.
At 48 weeks, 83% of patients had a sustained response to hepatitis infection with the combination of telaprevir (Incivek)-pegylated interferon and ribavirin, and maintained suppression of HIV to less than 50 copies/mL, said Laurent Cotte, MD, co-ordinator of the study for the French National Agency for Research (ANRS), and a physician at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Lyon.
More than half the patients with HIV in France are co-infected with hepatitis C virus making this population of patients difficult to treat, Cotte told MedPage Today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.
“Despite a high discontinuation rate related to toxicity (20.3%), a very high virological response rate was achieved at Week 48 with the combination therapy in patients who were already experienced with pegylated-ribavirin HIV co-infected patients,” Cotte said at his poster presentation.
Ed Susman , Contributing Writer
MedPage Today
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