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Posttransplantation prevention and treatment of recurrent hepatitis C
Author(s) -
Burroughs Andrew K.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
liver transplantation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.814
H-Index - 150
eISSN - 1527-6473
pISSN - 1527-6465
DOI - 10.1053/jlts.2000.18690
Subject(s) - medicine , liver transplantation , hepatitis c , intensive care medicine , medline , hepatitis , virology , transplantation , political science , law
Key Points 1. Hepatitic C virus (HCV) viremia is universal after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) for HCV cirrhosis. 2. At 5 years post‐OLT, approximately 20% of patients have cirrhosis caused by recurrent hepatitis C. 3. Progression of disease is related to immunosuppression, immune response (CD4 + lymphocytes), HCV genotype, and HCV quasispecies homogeneity. 4. Whether a therapeutic strategy of pre‐OLT or early (preemptive) antiviral therapy is better than treating a clinically important hepatitis and the duration of treatment are not known. 5. Monotherapy with recombinant interferon‐α or ribavirin is not useful in the long term. 6. Combination therapy (interferon and ribavirin) has given better results, but long‐term data are not available. 7. HCV recurrence will benefit from randomized studies.