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San Francisco—Current guidelines recommend using regimens with ribavirin to treat liver transplant patients who experience recurrent hepatitis C infection or extending treatment to 24 weeks. Ribavirin, however, can contribute to anemia and may worsen renal function in immunosuppressed patients. Another option may work as well or better explained MS Hassett and others in Late Breaking poster presentation 28 (LB-28) at the 2015 annual meeting of the AASLD held here recently. You can find the entire abstract here.

Researchers assessed sustained virologic response in 66 liver transplant patients with recurrent HCV genotype 1 infections following 12 weeks of treatment with either simeprevir/sofosbuvir or ledipasvir/sofosbuvir without ribavirin. All 18 of the patients treated with ledipasvir/sofosbuvir attained sustained virologic response as did 94% of those taking simeprevir/sofosbuvir.

The researchers noted that “given the improved tolerability of these treatment regimens, most patients were able to initiate antiviral therapy earlier in their post-[liver-transplant] course, prior to the development of more advanced fibrosis.”