The availability of a new generation of active antiviral drugs heralds a revolution in the treatment of people with chronic infection with the hepatitis C virus. Better tolerated, more effective, with data available today which make it possible to hope for a virological cure for 90% of patients after a cure of only 12 or 24 weeks.
“We have gone from heavy and long treatments, with undesirable effects and cure rates of the order of 70% to simple treatments (one or two tablets administered orally), short, well tolerated and which provide recovery of more than 95% most often in just three months “, explained to AFP, Professor Victor de Lédinghen at the Bordeaux University Hospital, secretary general of the French Association for the Study of the Liver (AFEF).
Target a population at risk
“This is the first time in the history of medicine that a chronic disease can be cured with a 3-month medical treatment without severe side effects,” explains Prof. Victor de Lédinghen.
Hepatitis C would affect 400,000 people in France, but a certain number of patients are unaware that they are infected. Hepatitis C is characterized by a slow progression (from the F0 stage without symptoms, to the F4 stage which corresponds to cirrhosis) and difficult to predict because it varies significantly between each person.
Relying on the hearing of experts, patient associations and data from the medical and scientific literature, the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommends in the first place that these new treatments be treated immediately with these new treatments. patients who have reached the severe stages of the disease (F3 and F4). And for all the other stages of fibrosis (OF, F1 and F2), the experts insist on the importance of making the decision after a multidisciplinary consultation meeting.
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