Annals Internal Medicine, Author Interviews, Hepatitis - Liver Disease, Kidney Disease, Transplantation / 18.07.2018
Hepatitis C Treatment After Kidney Transplant May Extend Lives and Decrease Costs
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Mark H. Eckman, MD
Posey Professor of Clinical Medicine
Director, Division of General Internal Medicine
Director, Center for Clinical Effectiveness
University of Cincinnati Medical Center
Cincinnati, OH
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: People who are infected with hepatitis C virus and have kidney failure need a kidney transplant.
Recent studies have found that it is possible to transplant kidneys from donors who are infected with hepatitis C virus into patients who need a transplant and are already infected with the virus. In addition, drugs are available to cure most patients of hepatitis C virus, including those who have kidney failure. Infected patients who need a kidney transplant have 2 options. One option is to receive an infected kidney and then use drugs after the transplant to cure themselves and the transplanted kidney of the virus. Another option is to use the drugs first to get rid of the virus and then to receive a kidney from a donor who does not have hepatitis C virus infection.
For the more than 500,000 patients receiving dialysis for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), less than 4% receive kidney transplants. Because of the limited organ availability, hemodialysis is the final treatment for most patients with ESRD. Of the 10% or so of U.S. patients receiving dialysis who are infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), some are willing to accept HCV-infected kidneys, in part, because the wait times for such kidneys are shorter than those for HCV-uninfected kidneys. Because the yearly mortality rate for patients receiving hemodialysis is so high, between 4% and 16%, reducing the time to kidney transplant can have a dramatic effect on both survival and quality of life.
Because it may not be possible to do this type of research with actual people, we created a model that allowed us to estimate possible outcomes without using actual people.
The model was a computer program that combined the best available information to approximate what might happen to participants in a real-world clinical trial. (more…)