Detection of anti-protease inhibitors resistance mutations in HCV strains infecting treatment-naïve chronic patients from Romania

Abstract

Background: Severe complications of chronic hepatitis C – i.e. cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma – are important causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite the overwhelming rates of sustained virologic response achieved after therapy with different combinations of direct-acting antiviral drugs (DAAs), treatment failure is still recorded, and is due to the mutations harboured by hepatitis C virus (HCV) resistance associated variants (RAVs) selected during therapy. Baseline RAVs testing was found significant for guiding treatment in the cases of treatment failure and, sometimes, in naïve patients.

Keywords

• ns3 protease
• direct-acting antivirals
• resistance mutations
• naïve to treatment patients