Research: Study shows existing drugs can cure illness
Hepatitis C is now curable with the aid of existing treatments, it has emerged after extensive tests on existing patients.
A study of 1,000 patients carried out at the Virginia Commonwealth University over seven years revealed 99% of patients were free of the infection after receiving a single course of treatment.
The use of pegylated interferon and ribavirin has been proven to remove all detectable virus in 99% of patients for up to seven years.
Researchers said this data validates the use of the word "cure" when describing hepatitis C treatment as successful. Treatment is defined as having undetectable hepatitis C virus in the blood six months following treatment.
It still remained unclear, however, whether the remaining eight patients that tested positive for the virus in the seven years were reinfected or had suffered a relapse. The study found that these eight patients exhibited no consistency in age, gender or HCV genotype.
The results were based on a long-term follow-up study designed to determine if the virus re-emerges in patients who have achieved treatment success.
Professor Mitchell Shiffman, chief of hepatology at the university, said: "We are encouraged by this data because it is rare in the treatment of life-threatening viral diseases that we can tell patients they may be cured".
Charles Gore, chief executive of the Hepatitis C trust, said the results would be reassuring for patients who had to undergo six months to a year of weekly injections and daily tablets.
It is believed that around 250,000 people in the UK have signs of hepatitis C infection, although some of these will clear it naturally and not become chronically infected. However, the number could be as high as half a million and it is estimated that nine out of 10 people do not know they are infected.
Most people do not experience any symptoms when they become infected. Some people may feel briefly unwell and, in rare cases, may become jaundiced. Many people with chronic hepatitis C infection will have no symptoms, while others will feel unwell to certain extents.
Hepatitis C is contracted through infected blood, can cause cirrhosis, liver cancer or liver failure and the need for liver transplantation.
