Poor Response to Direct-Acting Antiviral Therapy in HCV-Infected Elderly Population: A Real-Life Cohort Study Based on GeneXpert^® Technology

Abstract

Aim: This study aimed to determine the efficacy of direct-acting antiviral drugs in different ethnicities and elderly population of Pakistan. Methods: We used GeneXpert^® technology to quantify HCV RNA and evaluated treatment response in different cohorts that included HCV patients classified on the basis of their age-group and ethnicity. Results: The findings of our study suggest that 76% of nonresponder patients were older than 55 years of age which shows that age is the predictor of treatment outcome of direct-acting antiviral drugs. In addition to this, no differences were observed in overall efficacy by ethnicity. Conclusion: Treatment-regimen sofosbuvir+ribavirin has a limited effect on older patients; therefore, practitioners and healthcare professionals need to reconsider treatment options for elderly populations.

Keywords: :

• DAA drug
• elderly population
• HCV
• Pakistan
• GCMBDR
• treatment response

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge all members (M Khan, Anam, R Bashir, Nawaz, Zeeshan, Bilal, Riaz, Peer, and Raheel) of Genome Centre for Molecular based Diagnostics and Research, Lahore, Pakistan for their collaboration and technical support.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financialinvolvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical statement

Procedures followed in the study were in accordance with the ethical standards of institution’s committee.