10 million people in the country are infected with this virus, is there a cure?

Written by Zi Lin, Contributing Reporter of Life & Health Magazine (WeChat: Zi Lin reads health for you)

Interviewed by Chen Xin Yue, Director of the International Medical Department of Beijing You'an Hospital Affiliated to the Capital Medical University, and Director of the International Medical Department of the Beijing You'an Hospital, and Professor and Doctoral Supervisor

This article has been published in the 2016 AIDS Supplement of Life and Health Magazine, with the original title of "Traditional Therapies vs. New Drugs DAA"

Editor's Note

"Deep, low-profile, mysterious, unknown ", what do you associate with when you see this set of words? A tall, handsome handsome man? But the truth is far from what you think, this group of words is actually used to describe the disease hepatitis C.

Currently, about 10 million people in China are infected with the hepatitis C virus, and a significant portion of these 10 million people, are unaware that they are infected with the virus. This is mainly because the public's knowledge of the disease is too low, leading to a relatively late detection and delayed treatment. Director Chen Crescent of the International Medical Department of Beijing You'an Hospital said that there are even some patients who found out that they have hepatitis C but do not actively treat it because, in their eyes, hepatitis C is a disease that can not be cured, so it would be better not to treat it.

There are too many misconceptions about hepatitis C treatment. So is the treatment of hepatitis C really the big problem?

Hepatitis C is not as difficult to treat as hepatitis B

Dr. Chen Crescent said, hepatitis C is not only curable, but also a disease with a high cure rate. According to clinical statistics, with the traditional treatment: interferon + ribavirin, can make the cure rate of 80%. And why is the cure rate for the familiar hepatitis B only about 50%?

Because hepatitis C and hepatitis B are two different types of viruses, and the viruses "hide" in different places. Hepatitis C virus is an RNA virus, which mainly exists in the cytoplasm of the cell, and in the cytoplasm of the cell constantly replicating and proliferating. To put it plainly, the hepatitis C virus lives in such a small circle, just in the liver cell cytoplasm, so it's easy for us to find its exact location and inject the drug to reach that location to get rid of it.

But the hepatitis B virus is a DNA virus that lives in a much larger area than the hepatitis C virus because it hides in the nucleus of the liver cell and keeps replicating, which is a deeper and more hidden place than where the hepatitis C virus hides and is not so easy to catch alive. Therefore, it is very difficult for the currently applied hepatitis B treatment drugs to reach the nucleus of the cell and treat it precisely. Because of this, a cure for hepatitis B and hepatitis C are not the same concept. Dr. Crescent Chen said that the cure of hepatitis B is generally known as clinical cure. The so-called clinical cure does not mean that there is not a single virus in your body, but the hepatitis B virus after treatment, it will not be able to replicate and proliferate.

But when your resistance drops for some reason, the hepatitis B virus in your body may still come back. But hepatitis C is not, as long as it is cured by reasonable treatment, you go to the examination basically will not have hepatitis C virus in the body again.

Traditional hepatitis C treatments have high efficacy but high side effects

Traditional hepatitis C treatments - "interferon + ribavirin", although it has played a very good effect, the cure rate can reach 80%. The cure rate can reach 80%, but the interferon treatment produced a series of side effects, but also let the doctors have some headaches. In the outpatient treatment of hepatitis C, 80-90 percent of patients will have adverse reactions, hair loss is one of the more common reactions.

Dr. Chen Crescent once treated a patient with hepatitis C. The patient, a broadcaster, began to lose his hair and his image was emaciated after interferon treatment, but his profession demanded that his image not be impaired, and he later had to leave his job temporarily.

Why are there so many adverse reactions to interferon?

Dr. Chen Crescent said, because interferon plays the role of immunomodulation, it goes to clear the hepatitis C virus by adjusting its own immune function. But in the process of clearing the virus, sometimes there is a price to pay. Because the virus is present on the liver cells, when you boost your own immunity and clear the virus, it actually comes at the expense of the liver cells.

So immune-modulating therapy is a double-edged sword, with both clearance and damage. It's as if the liver is a battlefield, where the virus and the immune cells fight, not removing the virus unharmed, but at some cost. When you remove the virus, you also remove the liver cells that carry the virus at the same time, but of course, normal liver cells that do not carry the hepatitis C virus are not damaged.

Crowds who can't use interferon

People with decompensated liver function, autoimmune diseases, such as hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis, as well as hyper-spleen function, psychiatric disorders, anxiety, depression, diabetes, and blood glucose is not well controlled, are unable to carry out interferon treatment. The more these people play interferon, the original disease will become more and more serious.

While the interferon + ribavirin treatment has many side effects, and some people can not use it, but because before this treatment, there is no better drug can treat hepatitis C, so this approach has been used until now.

New drug coming soon, how useful is it?

Medicine and technology are advancing rapidly, and there is now a new way to treat hepatitis C. Instead of injecting interferon, you can take a "DAA" (direct-acting antiviral) oral medication. Dr. Chen Xinyue said that DAA can be used to treat Hepatitis C. Dr. Chen Crescent said, DAA is an epoch-making drug, it is a direct-acting antiviral. It directly removes the hepatitis C virus from the liver cells without sacrificing the virus-carrying liver cells as in the "interferon + ribavirin" approach.

The treatment of hepatitis C eliminates the need for interferon injections and avoids side effects. And for people with contraindications to interferon, DAA therapy is also available, which has a 95-100 percent cure rate and can solve all hepatitis C problems.

How often should I be retested after being cured of hepatitis C?

Three months after the cure, if the virus is not detected by the most accurate methods, it can be said to be basically cured. After that, it's a six-month checkup, and if there's still no problem, you can stop checking next. However, if there is cirrhosis, it is recommended to continue to check once every six months, because the virus is gone, but whether cirrhosis continues to develop and whether there are any tumors, we have to continue to observe.

Declare that this article is Zi Lin original, interviewed experts professional proofreading, unauthorized reproduction and excerpts are prohibited, otherwise strictly pursue legal responsibility! Part of the picture comes from the network.

Author Introduction

Zi Lin, senior medical media, medical science writer, former director of the Beijing TV health program, plowing the field of health communication for nearly a decade. 2015 October founded the medical science column "Zi Lin for you to read the health", and then the major sites within six months the cumulative readership of more than 1 billion. The column has been read by more than 1 billion people in six months on various websites.