Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. Nov 6, 2015; 6(4): 114-119
Published online Nov 6, 2015. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v6.i4.114
Direct antiviral agent treatment of decompensated hepatitis C virus-induced liver cirrhosis
Shogo Ohkoshi, Haruka Hirono, Satoshi Yamagiwa
Shogo Ohkoshi, Haruka Hirono, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Life Dentistry at Niigata, the Nippon Dental University, Niigata-city 951-8580, Japan
Satoshi Yamagiwa, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences Niigata University, Niigata-city 951-8520, Japan
Author contributions: Ohkoshi S wrote the paper; Hirono H and Yamagiwa S made a discussion with Ohkoshi S.
Supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (25461012 for Shogo Ohkoshi) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors do not have any commercial affiliation or consultancy that could be construed as a conflict 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: Shogo Ohkoshi, MD, PhD, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Life Dentistry at Niigata, the Nippon Dental University, 1-8 Hamaura-Cho, Chuo-ku, Niigata-city 951-8580, Japan. okoshi@ngt.ndu.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-25-2118243 Fax: +81-25-2671582
Received: May 20, 2015
Peer-review started: May 21, 2015
First decision: July 10, 2015
Revised: July 15, 2015
Accepted: September 10, 2015
Article in press: September 16, 2015
Published online: November 6, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Decompensated liver cirrhosis (LC) due to hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a severe disease with poor prognosis. Because interferon-included regimens are contraindicated at this stage, liver transplantation has been the only way to cure the disease. However, recent development of direct antiviral agents (DAAs) is offering a hope for this difficult situation. Promising antiviral effects of DAAs for LC have been observed, suggesting they might be useful for treatment of decompensated HCV-LC. To explore this possibility, large case-control studies are needed.