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Understanding Hep C and the new DAAs 8 years 6 months ago #623
Hepatitis C is a virus, one of the most simple forms of "life". The sole purpose of the virus is to reproduce itself. Here is an animated video of it's lifecycle: Because it is so simple the virus alone does not have all the tools required to do this so it infects a cell and hijacks some of the machinery it finds there to make more mini me copies. Hep C is quite badly named because it give the impression the virus only infects liver cells. It also infects many other cell types: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142522/ The virus itself consists of only 4 key parts:
To reproduce the virus needs to make some more of each of these 4 key parts that are then assembled into new viruses. The DAA (Direct Acting Antiviral) treatments we use target parts 1-3
Sofosbuvir is like turning the RNA photocopier off for all genotypes (pan genotypic) Daclatasvir inhibits the NS5A in all genotypes, and Ledipasvir inhibits it well in GT1, GT4, GT6, ok in GT3 and not well in GT2 and GT5. Think of it like ripping out the electronics in that photocopier. Simeprevir is similar to Daclatasvir/Ledipasvir but rips out a different bit of the controller. All these treatments are targeted specifically at viral proteins so their impact on your body is minimal. They are like military snipers. Ribavirin has many more side effects in that it is like using a machine gun to kill a mouse. It works but there is a lot of collateral damage. Ribavirin inserts a fake letter R into the viral RNA where their should be a G and renders it illegible (like a child scribbling on the blueprints or writing words with the wrong letters in them). Unfortunately it also does the same to you cells so any cell that needs to divide and multiply (like blood cells for example) is slowed down by the Ribavirin. So now you probably know why anaemia can be a problem - the Ribavirin slowed down you blood factory. YMMV The following user(s) said Thank You: emilio, Alsdad, tweakmax, Joy, LondonGirl, greyhound, Bloot, Vicki, Johnboy, Jolie, Tuhin-Sikdar-facebook, Joan, Sir-Paul-Paul-MJ-twitter, Chejai, 1folho, zhuk, IRMA88, mikaere, Another Attempt, The_1B_Dude_Abides | |
Understanding Hep C and the new DAAs 8 years 6 months ago #651
| I'll be using this when I'm trying to explain Hep C in the future. Sob/Dac from Oct 29 2015 Geno 1b Fiberscan 9.9 Pre treatment Fiberscan 7.4 week 10 VL 1.3 million pre treatment Week 2.5 VL 96 Week 5.5 VL 17 Week 10 VL UD SVR 3 UD SVR 16 UD Cured: All liver functions in normal ranges. The following user(s) said Thank You: DrJames |
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