A PREDICTIVE AND COMPARATIVE STUDY VIA VIRAL AND BIOCHEMICAL MEASUREMENTS FOR RESPONDERS AND NON-RESPONDERS EGYPTIAN HEPATITIS C PATIENTS TO DACLATASVIR PLUS SOFOSBUVIR THERAPY

Most of the liver diseases and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) worldwide is due to infection with hepatitis C virus. The developed new drugs in the last few years are promising, but patients response to such drugs are different. Therefore, to identify early the non-responding patients to SOF/DCV therapy for saving of medical costs and to guide them for appropriate treatment without wasting time, HCV RNA in conjunction with biochemical tests were measured during treatment (at week 4) for 100 blood samples from patients were positive for antibodies to (HCV), elevated liver enzymes (mean baseline serum ALT (±SD 123±2.7 U/L), RT-PCR baseline 355,000 IU/ ml. All patients were negative for hepatitis B virus. These patients were under treatment with DAC 60 mg/day plus Sofosbuvir 400 mg/day to give a predictive outcome of the extent of response or not to this therapy. In addition, the same analyses were performed after the end of course therapy (12 weeks) in order to compare the results of the predictive value. The obtained results at  week 4 of treatment indicated that 95% of patients had been shifted to normal range for biochemical analysis measured in addition, viral load was decreased in 95% of patients, while at the end of treatment course (week 12) biochemical response was completely achieved in 98% of patients in a complete normalization ranges  as well as, viral titer reached to the below detection limit. On the other hand, the rest of the patient samples still abnormal and classified as non-responding.