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©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 28, 2018; 24(24): 2555-2566
Published online Jun 28, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i24.2555
Published online Jun 28, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i24.2555
Hepatitis C virus infection in children in the era of direct-acting antiviral
Malgorzata Pawlowska, Malgorzata Sobolewska-Pilarczyk, Department of Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Hepatology, Faculty of Medicine, Collegium Medicum, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Bydgoszcz 85-030, Poland
Krzysztof Domagalski, Centre For Modern Interdisciplinary Technologies, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń 87-100, Poland
Author contributions: Pawlowska M, Sobolewska-Pilarczyk M and Domagalski K contributed in writing and reviewing this article; all authors approved the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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: Malgorzata Pawlowska, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Hepatology, Faculty of Medicine, Collegium Medicum Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus University Torun, Floriana 12, Bydgoszcz 85-030, Poland. mpawlowska@cm.umk.pl
Telephone: +48-52-3255605 Fax: +48-52-3255650
Received: March 27, 2018
Peer-review started: March 27, 2018
First decision: April 19, 2018
Revised: May 10, 2018
Accepted: June 2, 2018
Article in press: June 2, 2018
Published online: June 28, 2018
Peer-review started: March 27, 2018
First decision: April 19, 2018
Revised: May 10, 2018
Accepted: June 2, 2018
Article in press: June 2, 2018
Published online: June 28, 2018
Core Tip
Core tip: There are more than 11 million hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected children worldwide. Most new HCV-infected cases have occurred through vertical transmission. Currently, a new era of highly effective direct-acting antiviral agents for the treatment of HCV infection has begun for paediatric patients. The first results of clinical trials with interferon-free therapy are very promising. ESPGHAN developed a position paper for the management of chronic HCV infection in children. Non-invasive methods to measure hepatic fibrosis enable the identification of patients with significant liver fibrosis. This article summarizes the current data on epidemiology, new therapies and non-invasive methods in paediatric patients with HCV infection.