PLoS ONE (Jan 2016)

Rapid Increase in Serum Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Concentration during Hepatitis C Interferon-Free Treatment.

  • Satoru Hashimoto,
  • Hiroshi Yatsuhashi,
  • Seigo Abiru,
  • Kazumi Yamasaki,
  • Atsumasa Komori,
  • Shinya Nagaoka,
  • Akira Saeki,
  • Shinjiro Uchida,
  • Shigemune Bekki,
  • Yuki Kugiyama,
  • Kazuyoshi Nagata,
  • Minoru Nakamura,
  • Kiyoshi Migita,
  • Kazuhiko Nakao

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0163644
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 9
p. e0163644

Abstract

Read online

BACKGROUND & AIM:We performed lipid analyses at the early period of therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C who underwent interferon (IFN)-free direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment, and we attempted to identify the factors that contributed to a rapid increase in the patients' serum low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) concentration. METHODS:We retrospectively analyzed the cases of 100 consecutive patients with HCV infection treated at the National Hospital Organization Nagasaki Medical Center: 24 patients underwent daclatasvir (DCV) and asunaprevir (ASV) combination therapy (DCV/ASV) for 24 weeks, and the other 76 patients underwent ledipasvir and sofosbuvir combination therapy (LDV/SOF) for 12 weeks. ΔLDL-C was defined as the changed in LDL-C level at 28 days from the start of therapy. To determine whether ΔLDL-C was associated with several kinds of factors including viral kinetics, we performed a stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. RESULTS:The LDL-C levels in patients treated with LDV/SOF were markedly and significantly elevated (87.45 to 122.5 mg/dl; p<10-10) compared to those in the DCV/ASV-treated patients (80.15 to 87.8 mg/dl; p = 0.0056). The median levels of ΔLDL-C in the LDV/SOF and DCV/ASV groups were 33.2 and 13.1, respectively. LDV/SOF combination therapy as an IFN-free regimen (p<0.001) and ΔHCV core antigen (0-1 day drop) (p<0.044) were identified as independent factors that were closely related to the ΔLDL-C. CONCLUSIONS:A rapid increase in the serum LDL-C concentration during the IFN-free treatment of hepatitis C was associated with the type of HCV therapy and a decline of HCV core protein.