Toward chronic hepatitis C eradication in HIV-positive patients, including those cirrhotic and infected with genotype 3 viruses

Direct-acting agents (DAA) have proved dramatic efficiency to cure chronic hepatitis C.1 2 Extensive assessment of their real-life effectiveness is now required, including in cirrhotic and genotype 3 HCV-infected patients who are under-represented in real-world studies but are considered the still hard-to-cure population.1–5 We read therefore with interest the article by Welzel et al1 about the achievement of sustained virological response (SVR) in 91% of cases in a real-world cohort treated with sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir with or without ribavirin for 12–24 weeks. Indeed, remarkably, SVR was 92% in patients infected with HCV-3 (n=102), 97% in cirrhotics (n=389), 98% in HIV-infected individuals (n=55) and 96% in case of prior HCV therapy (n=341).

We analysed the efficacy and safety of DAA-based anti-HCV therapies administered during 2 years (May 2014–April 2016) to a real-world cohort of 170 HCV-HIV-coinfected...