Hepatitis C can be cured with antiviral drugs

This is an automatically translated article.

The article was professionally consulted by Specialist Doctor I Huynh Kim Long - Emergency Resuscitation Doctor - Emergency Resuscitation Department - Vinmec Danang International Hospital

Hepatitis C is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus. The severity of the disease can range from a mild illness lasting a few weeks, to more serious conditions such as cirrhosis or liver cancer.

1. Is hepatitis C curable?

Chronic hepatitis C is a curable disease. Currently, there are many drugs used to treat chronic hepatitis C, in which many new drugs have emerged, with increasing effectiveness and fewer side effects. Therefore, there are some cases where it is not necessary to use injections as in the past.
Patients treated with the new regimen have the advantage of fewer side effects, and the cost is greatly reduced compared to before. The treatment time is shortened to only about 3 - 6 months (compared to the treatment time with injections of 6 - 12 months, even 18 months). The success rate of treatment regimens can reach 90%.
Currently, there are a number of drugs approved by the Ministry of Health with the active ingredient sofosbuvir, a combination of 2 active ingredients including sofosbuvir + ledipasvir, or a drug with the active ingredient daclatasvir.
The rational use of these drugs will bring the opportunity to cure hepatitis C for many patients, including patients who already have severe cirrhosis.

2. Treat Hepatitis C with Antiviral Drugs

In the acute stage: The goal of treatment is to reduce and prevent the risk of the disease developing into a chronic one. In fact, sick people have the ability to recover on their own if the body produces enough antibodies to fight the virus, but these cases are not many. It is important that patients need to strengthen their immunity to be able to repel the hepatitis C virus more effectively. Acute hepatitis C can be treated with many of the drugs used to treat chronic hepatitis C. The goal of treatment is to eliminate the virus in the patient.
In the chronic stage: It can still be cured if detected and intervened early, before complications arise. At this stage, doctors will usually prescribe antiviral treatment to clear the virus from the body and immunotherapy drugs. With the current development of medicine, scientists have researched many drugs that are effective in treating hepatitis C. Medications for chronic hepatitis C include:
Interferon alpha injection (Pegasys) Oral ribavirin (Rebetol, Copegus) Oral boceprevir (Victrelis) Oral simeprevir (Olysio) Oral sofosbuvir (Sovaldi) Oral daclatasvir (Daklinza) ) Oral ledipasvir, sofosbuvir (Harvoni) Oral ombitasvir, paritaprevir, ritonavir (Technivie) Oral ombitasvir, paritaprevir, ritonavir, dasabuvir (Viekira Pak).

The list of medicines for chronic hepatitis C can change each year as research on hepatitis C drugs is constantly advancing. However, many of these drugs are new, safer, and more effective, but are still used by few people. In addition, several recent studies have shown that combinations of certain antiviral drugs completely cure (remove the virus completely) in many patients with hepatitis C.

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