Hepatitis C virus infection in patients with chronic kidney disease and kidney transplantation: an update

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is independently associated with the development of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and is a significant cause of some forms of glomerulonephritis (GN), especially membranoproliferative GN and mixed cryoglobulinemia syndrome with renal damage. In addition, HCV is a frequent consequence of CKD and increases cardiovascular and liver-related mortality in patients on regular dialysis. HCV also negatively impacts kidney transplant (KT) recipients contributing to post-transplant morbidity and mortality by increasing the risk of new-onset diabetes post-transplant, GN, malignancy, and liver-related complications. Therapy with standard interferon (IFN) or pegylated IFN was associated with poor tolerability and low sustained virologic response. The treatment of HCV has advanced remarkably over the last few years. Numerous IFN-free regimens based on various combinations of direct-acting antiviral drugs have led to a sustained virologic response after 12 weeks of treatment in more than 90–95% of the patients with improved tolerance and low pill burden. In this review article, I review the update in HCV infection in patients with CKD and KT and the Food and Drug Administration approved new direct-acting antiviral drugs such as simeprevir (Olysio); sofosbuvir (Sovaldi); ledipasvir/sofosbuvir (Harvoni); dasabuvir, ombitasvir, paritaprevir, and ritonavir (Viekira pack); grazoprevir/elbasvir (Zepatier); sofosbuvir/velpatasvir (Epclusa); voxilaprevirr/sofosbuvir/velpatas...
Source: Egyptian Liver Journal - Category: Gastroenterology Tags: Review article Source Type: research