Hemodialysis Patients Treated for Hepatitis C Using a Sofosbuvir-based Regimen

There is paucity of data on sofosubvir (SOF)-based therapy in patients on maintenance hemodialysis (MHD). The objective of this report is to describe our experience using SOF-based direct antiviral agent (DAA) therapy in MHD patients in India.

All patients on MHD and treated with SOF-based therapy were included in this study. Before starting treatment, viral load, genotype, liver fibroscan, and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy were performed in all patients. SOF 400 mg/d or on an alternate day, ribavirin 200 mg/d and daclatasvir 60 mg/d were used in different regimens. Hepatitis C virus RNA was assessed at day 10 and at 4 weeks, at end of therapy, and at 12 weeks after stopping therapy.

A total of 62 treatment-naïve patients were included. Mean age was 33.3 ± 10.2 years; 66% were men. Median number of copies were 10⁶/dl. None had clinical evidence of cirrhosis. The most common genotype was genotype 1 in 64.5% of cases, followed by genotype 3 in 29% of cases. Thirty-nine patients were treated with SOF every other day/ribavirin, 2 patients with SOF daily/ribavirin, 6 with SOF every other day/daclatasvir, and 15 patients with SOF daily/daclatasvir. All patients were treated for 12 weeks. Fifty-nine (95.2%) patients had a sustained viral response (SVR). There was no impact of genotype on SVR. Twenty-three patients (37%) had complications while on therapy; 13 (20.3%) had dyspepsia, 4 had tuberculosis, and 3 had bacterial pneumonia. Most of the patients (n = 23; 56%) in the ribavirin group required an increase in the erythropoietin dose. No patient discontinued therapy due to complications.

SOF-based DAAs were well tolerated and efficacious in this cohort of patients on MHD.