Go Australia. Is it the only country in the world to adopt a treat-all approach?
If the majority of cases get treated then the heard effect goes and HCV is a thing of the past in Oz....another reason to keep its notoriously stringent immigration rules in place!
Shadowfax said
Aug 11, 2016
Thank you for posting this! This just all good news from this side of the pond as well.
SF
mallani said
Aug 10, 2016
Hi all,
When the Molecular Pathologist rang me with my VL results last week, we had a chat about the VL testing.
In March 2016, Australia gave access to Sovaldi, Harvoni and Daclatasvir to all HepC patients for a few dollars a course. My Lab is a private one, but does half of the VL testing for Queensland. She said the requests for HCV VL had increased by a factor of hundreds since March. VL's are now done before treatment, at 4 weeks after SOT, at 12 weeks (EOT for almost all) and at 12 weeks post EOT. She has not seen a positive result since March! All patients treated in Queensland have gone on to SVR, and this includes many Geno 3 cirrhotics. I find that immensely gratifying.
My Lab uses the Roche COBAS Ampliprep/COBAS TaqMan HCV Quantitative test, with a LLOQ of 15 IU/ml. She said all but two of the Labs in Australia now use this test, with two using the Abbott test. The Labcorp test had been used by some Labs but has been discarded.
My Hepatologist had done the recent VL test just to reassure me. He is working his way through his old patients, most of whom had previously relapsed. Many are Geno 3's. He now has over a thousand SVR's and none have relapsed. Four have been reinfected (IV drug-users). He does a new liver fibrosis assessment, even for his old patients, using FibroScan or biopsy. He has firm views that the blood tests (e.g.FibroTest) are not good enough. For his Geno 1's, he prescribes 12 weeks of Harvoni, even for cirrhotics. His Geno 3's get 12 weeks of Sovaldi/ Daclatasvir, again even for cirrhotics. I was surprised he no longer uses Ribavirin. He loved the stuff and kept me on 1.200mg /day for 48 weeks, even though my Hb dropped to 6-7 (60-70 over here). He claims it does not help. RAV testing is a waste of time, IHHO.
So it's all good news from across the pond. Cheers.
Go Australia. Is it the only country in the world to adopt a treat-all approach?
If the majority of cases get treated then the heard effect goes and HCV is a thing of the past in Oz....another reason to keep its notoriously stringent immigration rules in place!
Thank you for posting this! This just all good news from this side of the pond as well.
SF
Hi all,
When the Molecular Pathologist rang me with my VL results last week, we had a chat about the VL testing.
In March 2016, Australia gave access to Sovaldi, Harvoni and Daclatasvir to all HepC patients for a few dollars a course. My Lab is a private one, but does half of the VL testing for Queensland. She said the requests for HCV VL had increased by a factor of hundreds since March. VL's are now done before treatment, at 4 weeks after SOT, at 12 weeks (EOT for almost all) and at 12 weeks post EOT. She has not seen a positive result since March! All patients treated in Queensland have gone on to SVR, and this includes many Geno 3 cirrhotics. I find that immensely gratifying.
My Lab uses the Roche COBAS Ampliprep/COBAS TaqMan HCV Quantitative test, with a LLOQ of 15 IU/ml. She said all but two of the Labs in Australia now use this test, with two using the Abbott test. The Labcorp test had been used by some Labs but has been discarded.
My Hepatologist had done the recent VL test just to reassure me. He is working his way through his old patients, most of whom had previously relapsed. Many are Geno 3's. He now has over a thousand SVR's and none have relapsed. Four have been reinfected (IV drug-users). He does a new liver fibrosis assessment, even for his old patients, using FibroScan or biopsy. He has firm views that the blood tests (e.g.FibroTest) are not good enough. For his Geno 1's, he prescribes 12 weeks of Harvoni, even for cirrhotics. His Geno 3's get 12 weeks of Sovaldi/ Daclatasvir, again even for cirrhotics. I was surprised he no longer uses Ribavirin. He loved the stuff and kept me on 1.200mg /day for 48 weeks, even though my Hb dropped to 6-7 (60-70 over here). He claims it does not help. RAV testing is a waste of time, IHHO.
So it's all good news from across the pond. Cheers.