NIDDK Funds Clinical Centers for Hepatitis C Research
July 21, 1999The NIDDK today announced awards of $28 million to fund an 8 year clinical trial of anti-viral drugs is treatment for chronic hepatitis C (HCV). Researchers seek to know if long-term treatment with these drugs can slow or prevent the progression of liver disease in HCV patients. Some, but not all, HCV patients develop cirrhosis or liver cancer, which can lead to death.
The study will also provide information on the natural history of hepatitis C and help researchers identify factors that predict or correlate with liver damage caused by HCV.
NIDDK will fund nine centers around the country, a virology laboratory and a data coordinating center. The trial will recruit patients with chronic HCV who have previously been treated with alpha interferon but who could not sustain reduced enzyme and virus levels. Recruitment is tentatively scheduled to begin early in 2000. Researchers will decide which drugs will be used and the number of volunteers to be recruited this summer.
Nearly 4 million Americans are infected with hepatitis C. Hepatitis C ranks with alcohol abuse as the most common cause of chronic liver disease and leads to about 1,000 liver transplants in the United States each year. HCV is spread primarily by contact with blood and blood products. Blood transfusions and sharing unsterilized needles and syringes have been the main causes of the spread of HCV in the United States.
"As the largest and longest study of hepatitis C, this trial should provide answers to difficult questions concerning management of hepatitis C," says Jay H. Hoofnagle, M.D., director, Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition, NIDDK. "The study will also set clinical criteria for grading, staging, and assessing the prognosis of people infected with HCV," adds Hoofnagle.
Information about hepatitis C is available from NIDDK's National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, 2 Information Way, Bethesda, MD 20892-3570; 301-654-3810; internet address www.niddk.nih.gov.
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CONTACT: Leslie Curtis
(301) 496-3583
Page last updated: April 17, 2008
