Two new studies examine the use of the nucleoside polymerase inhibitor, R1626, to the standard therapy for hepatitis C. The reports appear in the August issue of Hepatology, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).

A University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researcher has developed the first tissue culture of normal, human liver cells that can model infection with the Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and provide a realistic environment to evaluate possible treatments.

Hepatitis C is a health care problem all over the world, with 130 million patients infected the world over. The treatment is expensive and has variable results according to the genotype of the infecting virus. The first land mark in treatment is the virus clearance at the end of the treatment called End Treatment Response (ETR), but many of the patients achieving the ETR have a relapse within the next six months

HCV is a significant human pathogen, infecting more than three percent of the world’s population. The incidence of infection in the United States has been estimated to be as high as 4 million cases.

Using the Canadian Light Source synchrotron, an international team led by University of Calgary researcher Ken Ng has determined the detailed structure of the enzyme the Norwalk virus uses to make copies of its genetic code in order to replicate itself. The information is crucial to developing drugs that could be used to treat outbreaks of Norwalk and other related viruses.

Nevada Health District notifies patients of potential exposure of Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada patients to hepatitis C and urges testing for approximately 40,000 patients.

A compound that naturally occurs in grapefruit and other citrus fruits may be able to block the secretion of hepatitis C virus (HCV) from infected cells, a process required to maintain chronic infection.

In a survey of patients with chronic hepatitis C who participated in a National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases-sponsored long-term treatment trial for patients who had failed to respond previously to antiviral therapy, approximately 40% acknowledged to interviewers at the time of enrollment that they were currently using or had in the recent past used herbal products for health purposes.

In 1994, the team of Tchernev and Petrova from Alexandrovska Hospital in Sofia examined a female patient with liver cirrhosis caused by chronic Hepatitis C virus (HCV).

As reported recently in the journal Hepatology, WIN-R, a multicenter study of over 5,000 patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) showed treatment with weight-based REBETOL® (ribavirin, USP) (RBV) in combination with pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) alfa-2b achieved significantly higher rates of sustained virologic response (SVR) and lower relapse rates compared to combination therapy using a flat dose of RBV 800 mg/day.

People with severe mental illnesses are far more likely to be infected with Hepatitis C virus compared to the general population, however, they often do not get treatment for their liver disease because current antiviral therapies have known psychiatric side effects.

Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infects up to 500,000 people in the UK alone, many of the infections going undiagnosed. It is the single biggest cause of people requiring a liver transplant in Britain.