A Guide to Hepatitis C – Clinical Trials & Cures

Hepatitis C is caused by the Hepatitis C virus, sometimes shortened as HCV. Even though some patients will develop acute symptoms shortly after being infected, most patients can remain symptom-free for years or even decades, developing a chronic condition which is only diagnosed later in life when symptoms start to appear. In addition to damaging the liver, HCV can also affect the digestive, nervous, and immune system.

Hepatitis C is transmitted when blood that carries HCV enters the circulation of a healthy person. This can happen through the use of contaminated needles, which usually happens as the result of sharing needles for drug use; infection through sharing personal items, unprotected sex, tattoos or piercings, work accidents, and donated blood are also possible, but less common.

There are six types of Hepatitis C virus, all of which have different genes. They’re labeled as genotypes and numbered from 1 to 6. It is also possible to suffer from an infection caused by more than one of these genotypes at the same time.

Diagnosing Hepatitis C depends on when the symptoms occur, since this usually determines the moment when the person affected seeks medical help and is diagnosed with the disease.

It is estimated that only 20% to 30% of patients develop acute symptoms, which occur within 1-6 months after being infected with the virus. These symptoms include lack of appetite, fever, fatigue, jaundice (yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes), nausea, vomiting, dark urine, and abdominal pain. Extrahepatic symptoms can also occur, such as arthralgias (joint pain), paresthesias (sensitivity disorders), myalgias (muscle pain), and pruritus (itchy skin).

More commonly, though, patients don’t develop any acute symptoms and instead progress to a chronic infection, which only causes symptoms after serious liver damage occurs. This can happen decades after the initial infection. Amongst the symptoms that can develop with chronic liver damage, patients can suffer from inexplicable weight loss, pruritus, coagulation disorders that cause the patient to bleed and bruise easily, chronic fatigue, jaundice, ascites (abdominal fluid buildup), swollen legs, spider angiomas (spider-like blood vessels on the skin), hepatic encephalopathy (slurred speech, confusion), vomiting blood (hematemesis or melena caused by variceal bleeding), gynecomastia.

Once the patient seeks medical assistance and Hepatitis C is suspected, an anti-HCV tests is used to detect the presence of antibodies to the virus; however, this test doesn’t differentiate between an active or previous infection. To confirm a result, a HCV RIBA test is ordered to confirm whether the infection is active. Tests are also carried out to determine the HCV genotype. A liver biopsy may be carried out if the diagnosis is unclear, but it isn’t mandatory.

After a Hepatitis C diagnosis is confirmed, the patient should also be tested for HIV and Hepatitis B, since these diseases are transmitted the same way as HCV.

Hepatitis C trials are frequently conducted, given the disease’s high prevalence and risk for life-threatening complications, which makes preventing and curing the disease a top priority for investigators and healthcare workers.

The new drugs which have been approved for treatment of HCV have all gone through extensive medical trials to determine their efficacy, security, and to ascertain which genotypes they work best against. There is also great interest in developing a vaccine which can prevent infection, or its progression to chronic Hepatitis C.

If you are interested in joining a clinical trial for Hepatitis C, you can search online for open trials in your area, ask your doctor about clinical trials, or contact hospitals or universities and request information. In order to participate in a clinical trial, you need to meet certain criteria which is determined by the research team to ensure maximum accuracy in the trial’s results. Also, it is important to remember that you can always leave a clinical trial if you desire to do so.