What exactly is chronic HCV? In a nutshell, it refers to ongoing inflammation of your liver. But it can lead to symptoms throughout your body. Over time, living with this condition can cause your body to be especially vulnerable to serious health complications. Here is a great infographic from Healthline about the effects of Hepatitis […]
Author Archives: Dr James
29
Aug
Aug
Last week there was some celebrations after Under pressure, Gilead expands Sovaldi licensing deal to four middle-income countries. So great news, right? Not exactly, because in order for a country to have PRACTICAL ACCESS the product needs to be registered for sale there. Now Sovaldi hit the market in late 2013 and back in February […]
11
Aug
Aug
By Priti Krishtel Last week, the FDA approved AbbVie’s Mavyret—a new hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug that treats all genotypes of the disease and cures more than 90% of patients within just 8 weeks of treatment. This has been reported as a threat to Gilead Sciences’ dominant position in the market, sparking rumors of a […]
10
Aug
Aug
“To our knowledge, this is the first large-scale study to demonstrate the effect of newer DAA regimens upon survival. Treatment with 2 commonly used DAA regimens, PrOD and LDV/SOF, was associated with significant improvements in survival within the first 18 months of treatment, compared with demographically and clinically similar untreated HCV-infected controls. Treatment with either […]
23
Jul
Jul
Here is a copy of the presentation, called “Practivism, it’s the new black“, given by Dr James Freeman at the International AIDS society meeting in Paris today. Here is the text that went with the images. Crisis, What Crisis? This crisis. Look at this price comparison. I mean seriously? We only have to look at Egypt to […]
15
Jul
Jul
Over the past year there has been quite a lot of discussion about the risk of liver cancer following treatment with Direct Acting Antivirals like Harvoni® and Sovaldi®. Here is a quick explanation and the latest thinking from the academic gurus. First, the risk of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC aka liver cancer) only starts to rise […]
08
Jul
Jul
Here is the response from EASL to the recent Cochrane review. http://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/pb/assets/raw/Health%20Advance/journals/jhepat/CochraneEASLJMP003.pdf EASL, the European Association for the Study of the Liver, one of the world leading associations of liver specialists, feels compelled to express its serious concerns after the recent publication of a Cochrane Group systematic review entitled “Direct acting antivirals for chronic hepatitis […]
07
Jul
Jul
This article was just published in the Lancet The introduction of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medicines in 2013 revolutionised the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The efficacy of DAA therapy is impressive—in many clinical trials HCV cannot be detected by sensitive laboratory assays in more than 90% of people who complete DAA therapy, […]
01
Jul
Jul
About 1 in 5 patients taking Direct Acting Antivirals will get insomnia. Here is a post of mine from some years ago about how to manage it. Insomnia is a common and often frustrating problem. Part of the reason it’s frustrating is that, unless an accurate diagnosis of the root cause(s) is made, treatments tend […]
09
Jun
Jun
Yesterday the Guardian published an article called ‘Miracle’ hepatitis C drugs costing £30k per patient ‘may have no clinical effect’ https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jun/08/miracle-hepatitis-c-drugs-costing-30k-per-patient-may-have-no-clinical-effect The problem with this sensationalist headline is that while it is reporting what was said by the Cochrane Collaboration what they looked at was trial specifically designed to test SVR rates, and not specifically designed to […]