LifeGuide [Hep Talk] New HCV Meds Are on the Horizon, but Affordability May Still Remain a Challenge by Larry Buhl This column has covered several antiviral meds in the pipeline to treat hepatitis C, the most common cause of chronic liver disease, liver cancer, and liver transplantation in the U.S. When these meds become available they promise improved health-related quality of life and reduced morbidity and mortality, provided they are taken as recommended. And provided patients can afford them. That’s a big problem given their [...]

Hep C Is Manageable—If You Know the Ins and Outs by Larry Buhl You’ve been diagnosed with Hepatitis C. Now what? First, don’t panic. Doctors agree a Hep C diagnosis is not a death sentence. But the virus does require some lifestyle changes and careful monitoring to avoid chronic liver disease. There are a lot of misconceptions in the general public about hepatitis C. We spoke with Lisa Oldson, M.D., an internal medicine physician and medical director for the Analyte Physicians Group in Chicago. Dr. [...]

A second hepatitis C antiviral—boceprevir—moves closer to approval

In an Effort to Prevent HCV, One Campaign Is Educating Youth on Body Art Risks by Larry Buhl In the U.S., an estimated thirty-six percent of people under thirty years-old have tattoos. During tattooing, the skin is punctured up to 150 times a second in order to inject color pigments, leaving the customer at risk for blood-borne diseases including HIV and hepatitis C (HCV). According to the CDC, major research studies have not shown HCV to be spread through licensed, commercial tattooing facilities. However, poor [...]

What can we do to address the obstacles to HCV treatment? by Larry Buhl Hepatitis C (HCV) is a “silent killer” in more ways than one. It is a sneaky disease that can leave its victim asymptomatic for many years while doing massive damage to the liver. And too often it’s not talked about, due to stigmatization of the disease. But the alarming statistics regarding hepatitis C are causing more in the medical community to talk about it: Liver cancer, which is often driven by [...]

Rapid Testing for Hepatitis C Waits for Advances in Hepatitis C Treatment to Catch Up