1. Huge gap between clinical efficacy and community effectiveness in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C: a nationwide survey in Taiwan.
- Author
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Yu ML, Yeh ML, Tsai PC, Huang CI, Huang JF, Huang CF, Hsieh MH, Liang PC, Lin YH, Hsieh MY, Lin WY, Hou NJ, Lin ZY, Chen SC, Dai CY, Chuang WL, and Chang WY
- Subjects
- Adult, Aged, Antiviral Agents administration & dosage, Antiviral Agents adverse effects, Female, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Health Services Accessibility, Hepatitis C, Chronic epidemiology, Hepatitis C, Chronic therapy, Humans, Interferon alpha-2, Interferon-alpha administration & dosage, Interferon-alpha adverse effects, Male, Middle Aged, Polyethylene Glycols administration & dosage, Polyethylene Glycols adverse effects, Prevalence, Prospective Studies, Recombinant Proteins administration & dosage, Recombinant Proteins adverse effects, Recombinant Proteins therapeutic use, Ribavirin administration & dosage, Ribavirin adverse effects, Taiwan epidemiology, Antiviral Agents therapeutic use, Hepatitis C, Chronic drug therapy, Interferon-alpha therapeutic use, Medication Adherence, Polyethylene Glycols therapeutic use, Ribavirin therapeutic use
- Abstract
Peginterferon/ribavirin provides a substantially high treatment efficacy for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections in Asians. Whether the clinical efficacy can be translated to community effectiveness remains unclear. The disease awareness, treatment accessibility, recommendations, acceptance, and barriers to anti-HCV treatment were explored to clarify the issue with a 3-step nationwide investigation in Taiwan. A crude HCV-infected population was estimated using databases from 3 large-scale surveillance studies and age-/geographic-specific population database. HCV awareness and accessibility were investigated at the patient level in 58,129 residents. The recommendations/acceptances and barriers to treatment at the provider level were evaluated using a prospective, nationwide approach to 89 gastroenterologists/hepatologists. The estimated 10-year interval age-adjusted anti-HCV-seropositive population is 745,109 (3.28%), with an anticipated HCV-viremic population of 554,361. Of anti-HCV-seropositive subjects, 36.2% had disease awareness. Among those with awareness, 39.6% had accessibility. The recommendation/acceptance rate of antiviral therapy was 70.6%. The treatment rate was 10.1% and 13.7% for the anti-HCV-seropositive and HCV-viremic population, respectively. With an anticipated treatment success rate of 80% in Taiwan, 8.1% of the anti-HCV-seropositive and 10.9% of the HCV-viremic population achieved successful treatment. The major treatment barriers were fear of adverse effects (37%), major disorders (17.6%), ineligibility for insurance reimbursement (17.6%), and lack of therapy awareness (11.3%). Despite the high rates of treatment response and nationwide coverage of insurance reimbursement, there remains a large gap between clinical efficacy and community effectiveness in anti-HCV treatment in Taiwan. Increasing disease awareness/treatment accessibility and introducing new therapeutic strategies with high tolerability are warranted.
- Published
- 2015
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