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Study: Gene Predicts Response to Hepatitis C Drugs
A slight difference in a person’s genetic code could determine whether they respond to a grueling round of treatment for hepatitis C infection or not, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.
Tests looking for that deviation could be used to help decide which patients are most likely to benefit, they said. The finding may also explain why some racial and ethnic groups fare more poorly on standard treatments than others.
“This discovery enables us to give patients valuable information that will help them and their doctors decide what is best for them,” genetics researcher David Goldstein of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, said in a statement.
Hepatitis C is a blood-borne liver disease that can lead to chronic liver problems, liver cancer, cirrhosis and death. The virus affects an estimated 3.2 million people in the United States alone and 170 million worldwide.
Treatment typically involves 48 weeks of interferon plus the antiviral drug ribavirin. Some patients develop such taxing side effects that they stop treatment. Blacks are less likely to respond than whites.
Until now, no one has known why.
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