Anti-viral triple therapy with telaprevir in haemodialysed HCV patients: Is it feasible?

Introduction: Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the most common chronic liver disease in patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) and is well known as a frequent cause of mortality and graft loss among haemodialysed and kidney transplant patients. Up to now, there are no data on antiviral efficacy and tolerability of available protease inhibitors (telaprevir and boceprevir) in HCV infected haemodialysed patients. Methods: We report 4 cases of HCV infected haemodialysed patients, who have not responded to a prior course of pegylated interferon (Peg-IFN) and ribavirin (RBV) and who were listed for kidney transplantation (KTx). These 4 patients received a second-line antiviral treatment with Peg-IFN, RBV and telaprevir. Results: After 12 weeks of triple therapy, tolerability was acceptable and HCV-RNA became undetectable in 3/4 patients. Mild side-effects included anaemia leading to increasing the doses of erythropoietin (EPO). Dose of RBV ranged from 200 mg three times a week to 200 mg/day. Conclusion: Triple therapy with a first generation protease inhibitor could be the new standard for the treatment of HCV patients with ESRD. This needs to be confirmed by larger series. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.