Impact of successful hepatitis C treatment on quality of life

Key take-home messages

• People living with HCV who receive treatment and achieve sustained virologic response (SVR) have better healthrelated quality of life scores than people who do not respond to treatment and people who are untreated.
• The side effects of interferon — the medication used to treat HCV in the past — were responsible for most of the negative impact on health-related quality of life during treatment.
• During treatment with interferon-containing regimens, people’s physical and mental health-related quality of life get progressively worse. However, once treatment is over, people usually feel better physically and mentally than they did before they went on treatment.
• Depression, fatigue and insomnia are important predictors of patients’ quality of life before, during and after treatment.
• In clinical trials of the newer drug treatments, patients reported better quality of life outcomes with the modern interferon-free and ribavirin-free regimens with second generation direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). These improvements were sustained post-treatment.
• More data are needed to assess whether patients report the same improvements following treatment with interferon-free regimens in real world clinical practice settings.

• Population(s)
  • General HIV+ population
  • General HIV- population
• Engagement and Care Cascade
  • Treatment
• Co-infections
  • Hepatitis B, C