Bernabucci V, Ciancio A, Petta S, Karampatou A, Turco L, Strona S, Critelli R, Todesca P, Cerami C, Sagnelli C, Rizzetto M, Cammà C, Villa E. Boceprevir is highly effective in treatment-experienced hepatitis C virus-positive genotype-1 menopausal women. World J Gastroenterol 2014; 20(44): 16726-16733 [PMID: 25469044 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i44.16726]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Erica Villa, Professor, Division of Gastroenterology, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Policlinico di Modena, Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, via del Pozzo 71, 41124 Modena, Italy. erica.villa@unimore.it
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Clinical Trials Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 28, 2014; 20(44): 16726-16733 Published online Nov 28, 2014. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i44.16726
Boceprevir is highly effective in treatment-experienced hepatitis C virus-positive genotype-1 menopausal women
Veronica Bernabucci, Alessia Ciancio, Salvatore Petta, Aimilia Karampatou, Laura Turco, Silvia Strona, Rosina Critelli, Paola Todesca, Caterina Cerami, Caterina Sagnelli, Mario Rizzetto, Calogero Cammà, Erica Villa
Veronica Bernabucci, Aimilia Karampatou, Laura Turco, Rosina Critelli, Paola Todesca, Caterina Cerami, Erica Villa, Division of Gastroenterology, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Policlinico di Modena, Italy Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, 41124 Modena, Italy
Alessia Ciancio, Silvia Strona, Mario Rizzetto, Division of Gastroenterology, University of Turin, 10126 Turin, Italy
Salvatore Petta, Calogero Cammà, Division of Gastroenterology, DiBiMIS, University of Palermo, 90127 Palermo, Italy
Caterina Sagnelli, Dipartimento Medico-Chirurgico di Internistica Clinica e Sperimentale “F. Magrassi-A. Lanzara”, Second University of Naples, 80131 Naples, Italy
Author contributions: Bernabucci V revised the draft and in collaboration with Ciancio A, Turco L, Strona S, Cerami C, Sagnelli C, Karampatou A enrolled patients, collected and analysed the data; Critelli R collected, analysed the data and also revised the draft; Petta S collected, analysed the data, revised statistical analysis and was also involved in revising the draft; Rizzetto M contributed to the design of the study and revised the draft; Cammà C contributed to the design of the study, performed statistical analysis and revised the draft; Villa E designed the study, analysed the data and wrote the paper.
Supported by Schering-Plough (now Merck)
Correspondence to: Erica Villa, Professor, Division of Gastroenterology, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Policlinico di Modena, Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, via del Pozzo 71, 41124 Modena, Italy. erica.villa@unimore.it
Telephone: +39-59-4225308 Fax: +39-59-4222624
Received: April 25, 2014 Revised: June 19, 2014 Accepted: July 29, 2014 Published online: November 28, 2014
Core Tip
Core tip: After menopause liver disease in hepatitis C virus-positive women becomes rapidly progressive, severe fibrosis develops, and response to antiviral therapy becomes very low. Re-treatment with standard dual therapy in previous failures of Peginterferon-α + Ribavirin (PEG-IFNα/RBV) treatments does not achieve more than 5%-10% sustained virological response (SVR). The addition of Boceprevir to PEG-IFNα/RBV in menopausal women with HCV-1 genotype infection, who had previously failed dual antiviral therapy, determined a striking improvement of SVR. More than 45% of women re-treated with triple therapy achieved SVR, with few side effects and good tolerability. Response after 4 wk of Boceprevir was the only independent factor predicting SVR.
