Copyright
©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 28, 2017; 23(8): 1325-1327
Published online Feb 28, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i8.1325
Published online Feb 28, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i8.1325
Hepatitis C infected patients need vitamin D3 supplementation in the era of direct acting antivirals treatment
Yasuteru Kondo, Department of Hepatology, Sendai Kousei Hospital, Aoba, Sendai City 980, Miyagi, Japan
Author contributions: Kondo Y solely contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None declared.
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/
Correspondence to: Yasuteru Kondo, MD, PhD, Chief Director, Department of Hepatology, Sendai Kousei Hospital, 4-15 Hirosemachi, Aoba, Sendai City 980, Miyagi, Japan. yasuteru@ebony.plala.or.jp
Telephone: +81-22-2226181 Fax: +81-22-7138013
Received: October 22, 2016
Peer-review started: October 25, 2016
First decision: December 2, 2016
Revised: December 5, 2016
Accepted: December 21, 2016
Article in press: December 21, 2016
Published online: February 28, 2017
Peer-review started: October 25, 2016
First decision: December 2, 2016
Revised: December 5, 2016
Accepted: December 21, 2016
Article in press: December 21, 2016
Published online: February 28, 2017
Core Tip
Core tip: Although several mechanisms for the favorable effects of vitamin D3 (VitD3) supplementation were reported, the total effect of VitD3 supplementation remains unclear. Recently, the main treatment of chronic hepatitis C should be direct acting antivirals (DAAs) without pegylated interferon (Peg-IFN). Peg-IFN is a strong immune-modulator. Therefore, an immunological analysis should be carried out to understand the effect of VitD3 after treatment of DAAs without Peg-IFN. The induction of a favorable immune response by adding VitD3 might be able to suppress the hepatocarcinogenesis after achieving SVR, especially in children and elderly patients with severe fibrosis lacking sufficient amounts of VitD3.