Direct Acting Anti-Viral Drugs Improve Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients' with Hepatitis C

Abstract

Chronic hepatitis C Virus (HCV) causes significant decline in the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL). Recently, direct Acting Anti-viral Drugs (DAA) have been endorsed as standard of care for treatment for HCV. To study the HRQL in patients with HCV and cirrhosis before and after DAA. Study design: Prospective cohort hospital based study. We included 500 patients with HCV and cirrhosis fulfilled all eligibility criteria for treatment and completed the survey of HRQL using (SF-36 and CLDQ questioners) before and after treatment. Patients were treated by combination of one of the following regimens: (a) Sofosbuvir (SOF) plus Daclatasvir (DAC) ± Ribavirin (RBV) in 2 divided doses or (b) SOF plus Simeprevir (SIM) ± RBV or c) SOF plus RBV. On treatment, 35.2% of the patients had a poor physical function and half of them had poor role-emotional, while 45.7% patients’ had excellent role-emotional, 49% noticed change in their mode, evaluation of HRQL before and after treatment through SF-36 and CLDQ showed an improvement in different domains. (p<0.05). The overall Sustained Virological Response (SVR) was (89.6%). Results from the current study suggest that HRQL decreased on treatment and significantly increased after treatment. We recommend addressing the patients’ quality of life into consideration as a part of the evaluation protocol before the initiation of DAA drugs and after cure to improve this particular aspect of patients’ life.