Barriers to Treatment of Failed or Interferon Ineligible Patients in the Era of DAA: Single Center Study

Background/aims: Interferon-based treatment is not appropriate for a large number of patients with chronic hepatitis C for various medical and social reasons. Newly developed directly acting antivirals (DAAs) have been used to treat chronic hepatitis C without severe adverse effects and have achieved a sustained viral response (SVR) rate of 80-90% with short treatment duration. We were interested to determine whether all patients who failed to respond to or were ineligible for interferon-based therapy could be treated with DAAs.

Methods: Medical records of patients with positive serum anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) or HCV RNA between January 2009 and December 2013 were reviewed. Demographic, clinical, and treatment data were collected for analysis.

Results: A total of 876 patients were positive for both anti-HCV and HCV RNA. Of these, 244 patients were eligible for interferon, although this was associated with relapse in 39 (16%) of patients. In total, 130 patients stopped interferon therapy (67% adverse effects, 28% non-adherent, 4% malignancy, 1% alcohol abuse) and 502 patients were ineligible (66% medical contraindications, 25% non-adherent, 5% socioeconomic problems). Among 671 patients who were ineligible for or failed to respond to interferon therapy, more than 186 (27.7%) could not be treated with DAA due to financial, social, or cancer-related conditions.

Conclusions: Newly developed DAAs are a promising treatment for patients with chronic hepatitis C who are ineligible for or failed to respond to interferon-based therapy. Nevertheless, not all chronic hepatitis C patients can be treated with DAAs due to various reasons.