Patient Preference and Adherence (Dec 2018)

Patient-reported outcomes in individuals with hepatitis C virus infection treated with elbasvir/grazoprevir

  • Ng X,
  • Nwankwo C,
  • Arduino JM,
  • Corman S,
  • Lasch KE,
  • Lustrino JM,
  • Patel S,
  • Platt HL,
  • Qiu J,
  • Sperl J

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 12
pp. 2631 – 2638

Abstract

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Xinyi Ng,1 Chizoba Nwankwo,2 Jean Marie Arduino,2 Shelby Corman,1 Kathryn Eilene Lasch,1 Jacqueline Mary Lustrino,1 Sushma Patel,2 Heather Loryn Platt,2 Jingjun Qiu,2 Jan Sperl3 1Pharmerit International, LP, Bethesda, MD, USA; 2Merck & Co. Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, USA; 3Department of Hepatogastroenterology, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic Purpose: People chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) have diminished patient-reported outcomes (PROs). This study aimed to compare the impact of elbasvir/grazoprevir (EBR/GZR) treatment versus sofosbuvir with pegylated interferon and ribavirin (SOF/PR) on changes in PROs: 1) during the treatment period and 2) at posttreatment follow-up. Patients and methods: PRO data collected during the Phase III C-EDGE Head-2-Head (H2H) open-label study was analyzed. In this trial, patients infected with HCV were randomized 1:1 to receive either EBR/GZR or SOF/PR for 12 weeks. Patients self-administered the Short Form-36 version 2 (SF-36v2®) Health Survey Acute (1-week recall) Form and the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-Fatigue) Scale at baseline, during treatment, and posttreatment. Between-group differences in mean change of PRO scores from baseline were estimated during the treatment period and also at the posttreatment follow-up. Effect sizes were calculated to evaluate if the detected change in mean PRO scores is clinically meaningful between groups. Results: There were 255 patients (99.2% White, 54.1% female, 74.9% treatment naïve) included in the analysis. During the treatment period, significant declines in SF-36v2 scores were observed across all domains for the SOF/PR group. Compared to the SOF/PR group, the EBR/GZR group reported more improvement in scores across all SF-36v2 domain scores at the end of the treatment period. At treatment week 12, the between-group differences for 6 out of the 8 domain scores for these patients reflected at least moderate effects (effect sizes >0.5). No significant between-group differences in change in SF-36v2 scores from baseline were detected posttreatment. The decline in SF-36v2 scores observed during the treatment period for the SOF/PR group returned to near baseline scores or above posttreatment. Treatment with EBR/GZR did not impact fatigue scores, but treatment with SOF/PR led to increased fatigue scores during treatment which resolved by posttreatment follow-up week 12. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that HCV treatment with EBR/GZR resulted in a significantly better PRO profile as compared to SOF/PR. PROs are an important consideration as worsening PROs experienced during treatment may negatively influence adherence and ultimately contribute to an unfavorable clinical outcome. Clinical trials.gov Identifier: NCT02358044 Keywords: hepatitis, direct-acting antivirals, health-related quality of life, fatigue, patient-reported outcomes

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