POWER – For hepatitis C – one of the main causes of the development of chronic liver diseases such as, for example, chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and liver cancer or hepatocarcinoma, with consequent frequent need for transplant – there is no vaccine and the use of immunoglobulins have not proven effective. The activation of free screening in Italy, established by state law in 2020, aimed at the emergence of chronic HCV infection intended for those born between 1968 and 1989, for subjects in the care of addiction services (Ser. D) and to detained people, together with universal access to antiviral drugs starting from 2017, as part of the Plan to eliminate HCV infection, has made it possible to identify and treat over 200 thousand patients with infection to date chronic hepatitis C, the highest number of patients treated in Europe.
“It is in this context – states the general director of the ‘San Carlo’ regional hospital in Potenza Giuseppe Spera – that the important study conducted by our Internal Medicine specialists led by the director of the Internal Medicine department Dr. Buccianti was framed. The work – continues DG Spera – will be presented in Rimini as part of the 29th national congress of Fadoi, the federation of associations of internal medicine hospital managers, with the aim of demonstrating the therapeutic efficacy and high level of safety of antiviral therapy pangenotypic, effective for all genotypes of the HCV virus, in a cohort of 200 patients positive for hepatitis C virus, residing in Basilicata. Once again, the ability of the San Carlo AOR to combine healthcare activities with study and research emerges, with important recognition on the national and international scene”. “According to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, there are approximately 71 million people affected by the hepatitis C virus in the world, equal to just over one percent of the global population, with wide variability of geographical distribution”, explains Doctor Nello Buccianti. “In Italy – continues the internal medicine doctor – according to recently published estimates, there are around 400 thousand people affected by hepatitis C, of which almost 290 thousand with a stage of fibrosis ranging from absent to advanced and therefore potentially asymptomatic. The central part of the work conducted with colleagues from Internal Medicine at the ‘San Carlo’ hospital in Potenza lasted 8 weeks and involved 200 Lucanian patients, divided almost equally between women and men, treated with a pangenotypic antiviral therapy. After 12 weeks after treatment discontinuation, the sustained virological response in one hundred percent of patients was not affected by the degree of fibrosis, viremia, genotype, age and sex, and no adverse events were detected. The current antiviral treatment of hepatitis C virus, as demonstrated by our work and literature data, reduces the transmission of the virus so much that it can be defined as a prevention method. The elimination of virus C, a therapeutic prerogative of current drugs, must represent a stimulus to the implementation of the screening campaign for virus C, which the Basilicata region has joined in order to bring out hidden cases – concludes Dr. Buccianti – and contribute to achieving the objective proclaimed by the WHO which has identified 2030 as the year of elimination of the infection”.
