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Chronic hepatitis C virus infection in children and adolescents: Epidemiology, natural history, and assessment of the safety and efficacy of combination therapy.

ABSTRACT: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease of infectious etiology in children. Most of the children infected with HCV are asymptomatic, and only a few of them develop signs and symptoms of end-stage liver disease early in life. It is not possible to predict either in which patients HCV infection will have a bad outcome or the critical time in early adulthood when disease progression will accelerate. The experiences with therapy in children with chronic hepatitis C are based on earlier and continuing data from adult trials. The currently recommended treatment for chronic HCV infection in adults is the combination of peginterferon-á and ribavirin. The choice of this regimen is based on the results of randomized clinical trials that demonstrated the superiority of this combination treatment over standard interferon-á and ribavirin. Recently, results of pivotal, multicenter, interventional open-label studies on combined treatment with peginterferon-á and ribavirin in children have been published, and the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have approved the combination therapy in those older than 3 years. The aim of this review is to evaluate critically the available data regarding the safety and efficacy of combination treatment with peginterferon-á and ribavirin in children.

SUBMITTER: Indolfi G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3915892 | biostudies-literature | 2010

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Chronic hepatitis C virus infection in children and adolescents: Epidemiology, natural history, and assessment of the safety and efficacy of combination therapy.

Indolfi Giuseppe G Bartolini Elisa E Casavola Davide D Resti Massimo M

Adolescent health, medicine and therapeutics 20101005

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease of infectious etiology in children. Most of the children infected with HCV are asymptomatic, and only a few of them develop signs and symptoms of end-stage liver disease early in life. It is not possible to predict either in which patients HCV infection will have a bad outcome or the critical time in early adulthood when disease progression will accelerate. The experiences with therapy in children with chronic hepatitis C ...[more]

PMID: 24600267

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Dataset Information

Chronic hepatitis C virus infection in children and adolescents: Epidemiology, natural history, and assessment of the safety and efficacy of combination therapy.

Publications

Chronic hepatitis C virus infection in children and adolescents: Epidemiology, natural history, and assessment of the safety and efficacy of combination therapy.

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