Reducing Diabetes Risk Key to Eradicating HCV in Coinfected Patients

HealthDay News — In patients co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV), eradication of HCV is associated with a reduction in the risk of diabetes mellitus, according to a study published in Hepatology.

Juan Berenguer, MD, PhD, from the Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón in Madrid, and colleagues assessed non-liver-related, non-AIDS-related (NLR-NAR) events and mortality in a cohort of HIV/HCV-co-infected patients who were treated with interferon and ribavirin. 

The authors examined the hazard ratio of overall death for responders and non-responders after adjustment for confounding variables, and assessed the adjusted sub-hazard ratio (sHR) of NLR deaths and NLR-NAR events, with death as a competing risk.

The researchers found that 36% of the 1625 patients included had a sustained viral response (SVR). SVR correlated with a significant reduction in the risk of diabetes mellitus after a median 5-year follow-up (sub-hazard rate [sHR] 0.57; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.35 to 0.93, P =.024) and a non-statistically significant reduction in the risk of chronic renal failure (sHR 0.43; 95% CI, 0.17 to 1.09, P =.075).

“Our data suggest that eradication of HCV in co-infected patients is associated not only with a reduction in the frequency of death, HIV progression, and liver-related events, but also with a reduced hazard of diabetes mellitus and possibly of chronic renal failure,” the authors write.

Reference

Berenguer J, Rodríguez-Castellano E, Carrero A, et al; GESIDA HIV/HCV Cohort Study Group. Eradication of HCV and non-liver-related non-AIDS-related events in HIV/HCV coinfection [published online January 21, 2017]. Hepatology. doi: 10.1002/hep.29071