Background: Nowadays, interferon-free therapy using new direct-acting antivirals (DAA) has dramatically increased the cure rate across different HCV-infected patient populations, including groups traditionally viewed as difficult-to-treat (patients with co-infections, cirrhosis and liver transplant - LT recipients) with marked improvement in safety and tolerability.
Aim: To present our experience with DAA therapy in LT recipients, as well as to compare pre- and post-treatment liver stiffness (LS) and noninvasive fibrosis scores.
Methods: Our cohort consisted of 89 patients with genotype 1 (GT1) recurrent hepatitis C after LT. Seventy six patients received ombitasvir/paritaprevir/ritonavir+dasabuvir+ribavirin and 13 sofosbuvir/ledipasvir+/-ribavirin. Fibroscan®, FIB4 and APRI scores were performed in all patients before and 12 weeks after DAA therapy.
Results: We analyzed 45 (50.5%) males and 44 (49.5%) females with a mean age of 55+/-7.7 years. Median time since LT was 20.9 months. At baseline, 53 (59.6%) of patients had severe necroinflammation at Fibromax®; advanced fibrosis (F3, F4) was encountered in 35 (39.4%) and grade 3 steatosis in 33 (37.1%) of LT recipients. End of therapy (EOT) virological response (VR) was 100%. Sustained virological response 12 weeks after therapy (SVR12) was 97.7% in the intention-to-treat analysis and 100% in per protocol analysis. There was a significant improvement in LS between antiviral therapy initiation and SVR12: 11.9+/-1.05kPa vs 8.8+/-0.6kPa (p<0.0001), as well as in APRI (2.7+/-0.3 vs 0.4+/-0.05, p<0.0001) and FIB4 (4.6+/-0.5 vs 2.5+/-0.2, p<0.0001) scores.
Conclusions: In HCV positive recipients, DAA regimens are highly effective and safe. A significant decrease of LS by transient elastography and fibrosis non-invasive scores can be observed after successful therapy.