New Treatment Patterns for Hepatitis C Virus Infection

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has affected approximately ۱۸۰ million people across the world. In most cases, HCV-infection remains chronic, which expose patients at high risk of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The rates of disease incidence and mortality diminish as a result of successful treatment of HCV infection. Until the recent years, despite the associated toxicities and low rate of sustained viral response, all the therapeutic regimens for HCV infection were based on combination of interferon alfa and ribavirin. Almost ۲۵ years after identification of hepatitis C virus, tremendous progress was made in understanding of hepatitis C virus and development of novel therapeutic agents. Antiviral therapy for HCV is rapidly evolving with the advent of direct-acting antiviral agents. The new antivirals, specifically designed to inhibit three viral proteins (the NS۳/۴A protease, the NS۵A protein, and the NS۵B RNA dependent RNA polymerase) are currently available. Simeprevir (NS۳/۴A inhibitor) and sofosbuvir (NS۵B inhibitor) have been recently licensed and can reduce the length of treatment, promote response rate, and enable interferon-free dosing regimens for some particular HCV genotypes. Several other more recent direct-acting antivirals are under clinical studies and are probably to be licensed before long. In this study, we aimed to review the current treatments for HCV infection.