Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 28, 2019; 25(40): 6094-6106
Published online Oct 28, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i40.6094
Sustained virologic response to direct-acting antiviral agents predicts better outcomes in hepatitis C virus-infected patients: A retrospective study
GianLuca Colussi, Debora Donnini, Rosario Francesco Brizzi, Silvia Maier, Luca Valenti, Cristiana Catena, Alessandro Cavarape, Leonardo Alberto Sechi, Giorgio Soardo
GianLuca Colussi, Debora Donnini, Rosario Francesco Brizzi, Silvia Maier, Luca Valenti, Cristiana Catena, Alessandro Cavarape, Leonardo Alberto Sechi, Giorgio Soardo, Department of Medicine, University of Udine, Udine 33100, Italy
Author contributions: Colussi G, Donnini D, Sechi LA and Soardo G contributed to study conception and design; Donnini D, Brizzi RF and Maier S contributed to data acquisition; Colussi G, Catena C, Valenti L, Cavarape A and Sechi LA contributed to analysis and interpretation of data; Colussi G, Donnini D, Brizzi RF and Catena C contributed to drafting the article; Maier S, Valenti L, Cavarape A and Sechi LA contributed to making critical revisions of the manuscript; all authors contribute to final approval of the version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Udine.
Informed consent statement: According to the Italian law on retrospective studies and the Italian Data Protection Authority, all involved person, whenever reachable or alive, gave their informed consent to use their data. Any details that might disclose the identity of the subjects under study has been omitted or anonymized.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors do not have any conflict-of-interest to disclose.
STROBE statement: Authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items and the manuscript was prepared and revised accordingly.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Giorgio Soardo, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of Udine, 1st floor, Building n.8, Piazzale Santa Maria della Misericordia 1, Udine 33100, Italy. giorgio.soardo@uniud.it
Telephone: +39-432-559490 Fax: +39-432-559490
Received: June 17, 2019
Peer-review started: June 17, 2019
First decision: July 21, 2019
Revised: August 9, 2019
Accepted: September 9, 2019
Article in press: September 9, 2019
Published online: October 28, 2019
Core Tip

Core tip: The protective role of a sustained virologic response (SVR) achieved by direct-acting antiviral agents (DAAs) against the chronic consequences of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is not well established. We examined the occurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) or death from any cause in a retrospective-prospective study at our tertiary academic hospital center for liver disease management. We confirmed that DAA treatment is very effective in inducing SVR in HCV-infected patients and in protecting patients against HCC development or death. However, a residual risk of HCC persists, particularly in patients with advanced liver disease or with extra-hepatic HCV-related complications.