Successful treatment of chronic hepatitis C with pegylated interferon in combination with ribavirin in a methadone maintenance treatment program |
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Authors: | Alain H. Litwin Kenneth A. Harris Jr. Shadi Nahvi Philippe J. Zamor Irene J. Soloway Peter L. Tenore Daniel Kaswan Marc. N. Gourevitch Julia H. Arnsten |
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Affiliation: | 1. Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, USA;2. Division of Substance Abuse, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, USA;3. Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, USA;4. Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA;5. Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, USA |
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Abstract: | Injection drug users constitute 60% of the more than 4 million people in the United States with hepatitis C virus (HCV), including many methadone maintenance patients. Few data exist describing clinical outcomes for patients receiving HCV treatment on-site in methadone maintenance settings. In this retrospective study, we describe clinical outcomes for 73 patients receiving HCV treatment on-site in a methadone maintenance treatment program. Fifty-five percent of patients achieved end-of-treatment response, and 45% achieved sustained viral response. These treatment response rates are nearly equivalent to previously published HCV treatment response rates, despite high prevalences of ongoing drug use (49%), psychiatric comorbidity (67%), and HIV coinfection (32%). These data show that on-site HCV treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin is effective in methadone-maintained patients, many of whom are active drug users, psychiatrically ill, or HIV coinfected, and that methadone maintenance treatment programs represent an opportunity to safely treat chronic hepatitis C. |
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Keywords: | Chronic hepatitis C Methadone maintenance Interferon HCV Opiate agonist treatment |
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