Abstract
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection remains one of the main causes of chronic liver
disease worldwide. The advent of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) has significantly
improved the course of patients with chronic HCV infection (CHC), due to the ability
of these drugs to achieve high rates of sustained virological response (SVR). These
exceedingly high rates of SVR and the excellent safety data have been confirmed in
real life practice. Evolving guidelines have been issued by national and international
scientific societies in accordance with the progression of clinical knowledge and
the availability of new DAAs. These recommendations, however, may not be applied universally
because of delays in drugs reimbursability in different countries and because some
National Health Systems identify only patients with advanced disease as a treatment
priority. Italy in this regard is a prototype about DAAs treatment of CHC patients.
With the aim to assess the Italian treatment experience with DAAs and to respond to
unmet needs in treatment optimization of antiviral therapy in specific settings of
CHC patients, a group of Italian experts met in Stresa in February 2017. The summary
of the considerations arising from this two-day meeting and some statements regarding
a few open issues are reported in this position paper.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 13, 2017
Accepted:
March 31,
2017
Received:
March 8,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Editrice Gastroenterologica Italiana S.r.l. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
