Treatment of HCV infection in patients with steatotic liver disease

Aim of the study: The aim of the study was to characterize the population with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and steatotic liver disease (SLD) in comparison to the non-SLD HCV-infected patients and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatment with direct-acting antivirals (DAA).

Material and methods: The analysis included 62 patients diagnosed with SLD and 14,284 non-SLD patients from the EpiTer-2 database for the period 2015-2022.

Results: Unlike the non-SLD population, the SLD group was dominated by men (49.5% vs. 53.2%, respectively). The mean age of patients did not differ significantly between groups and was 50.8 ±13.8 and 50.8 ±14.9 years for SLD and non-SLD, respectively. As expected, patients with SLD had significantly different BMI values. Genotype (GT) 1b infection predominated in both populations, but the prevalence of GT3 was significantly higher in the SLD group (19.4% vs. 10.6%). The percentage of patients with advanced liver disease (F3/4) was similar in both groups (38.7% vs. 35.6%). Patients with SLD were more likely to be treatment naïve (82.3% vs. 80.5%), HBV co-infected (24.2% vs. 13.6%), and obese (54.8% vs. 17.1%). Out of 62 patients, 59 (95%) achieved a sustained virologic response (SVR), but after excluding 3 lost to follow-up a response rate of 100% was obtained. The corresponding SVR values in the non-SLD HCV-infected population were 95% and 98%, respectively.

Conclusions: Despite some differences in the characteristics of patients with SLD infected with HCV, the effec-tiveness of DAA therapy does not differ significantly from that observed in the general population infected with HCV.