Abstract

Background: Chronic Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes significant decline in the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL). Recently, Direct Acting Anti-viral drugs (DAA) have been endorsed as standard of care for treatment for HCV.

Aim: To study the HRQL in patients with HCV and cirrhosis before and after DAA.

Subject and methods: We included 500 patients with HCV and cirrhosis fulfilled all eligibility criteria for treatment and completed the survey of HRQL using (SF-36 and CLDQ questioners) before and after treatment. Patients were treated by combination of one of the following regimens: a) single daily oral dose of 400 mg of Sofosbuvir (SOF) plus 60 mg of Daclatasvir (DAC) ± ribavirin (RBV) in 2 divided doses or b) 400 mg of SOF plus 150 mg of Simeprevir (SIM) ± RBV or c) 400 mg of SOF plus RBV.

Results: On treatment, 35.2% of the patients had a poor physical function and half of them had poor roleemotional, while 45.7% patients’ had excellent role-emotional, 49% noticed change in their mode, The evaluation of HRQL before and after treatment through SF-36 and CLDQ showed an improvement in different domains (p<0.05). The overall sustained virological response (SVR) was (89.6%).

Conclusions: Results from the current study suggest that HRQL decreased on treatment and significantly increased after treatment. We recommend addressing the patients’ quality of life into consideration as a part of the evaluation protocol before the initiation of DAA drugs and after cure to improve this particular aspect of patients’ life.

Keywords: HCV; DAA drugs; Liver cirrhosis; Quality of life