EASL Releases New Hepatitis C Clinical Practice Guidelines

liver411

EASL Releases New Hepatitis C Clinical Practice Guidelines

SUMMARY
EASL updates European guidelines for management of patients with acute and chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

Coinciding with its International Liver Congress last month, the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) released its 5th Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Management of Hepatitis C Virus Infection.

Published in the March 2011 Journal of Hepatology, these guidelines are intended to assist physicians and other healthcare providers, as well as patients, in making decisions about care and treatment of acute and chronic hepatitis C.

"These guidelines apply to therapies that are approved at the time of their publication," reads the report's introduction. "Several new therapeutic options have completed phase III development for patients infected with HCV genotype 1 and are currently awaiting licensing and approval in Europe and the United States. Therefore, the EASL [Clinical Practice Guidelines] on the management of HCV infection will be updated on a regular basis upon approval of additional novel therapies."

The first 2 oral direct-acting hepatitis C drugs -- boceprevir (Victrelis) and telaprevir (Incivek) -- were recommended for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee in late April. These drugs will initially be used in combination with the old standard of care, pegylated interferon plus ribavirin, but all-oral combinations are now under study.


The full revised EASL Clinical Practice Guidelines are available free online at www.easl.eu/assets/application/files/d0df9f948c85a72_file.pdf.

5/6/11

Reference
EASL Clinical Practice Guidelines: Management of Hepatitis C Virus Infection. Journal of Hepatology 5. March 2011.

Other Source
EASL. What's New? Newsletter. April-May 2011.