Twelve weeks of Gilead Sciences’ Epclusa (sofosbuvir/velpatasvir) boasts a high success rate in treating those with genotype 3 of hepatitis C virus (HCV), even when people have viral mutations associated with drug resistance.

Publishing their findings in Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, researchers conducted a multicenter cohort study of 293 people with genotype 3 of HCV who received medical care at 10 treatment centers across Germany. The participants were enrolled in the study between July 2016 and August 2017.

The median age of the participants was 48 years old. Seventy percent were male, 25.3 percent had cirrhosis, 8.2 percent were coinfected with HIV and 21.8 percent had been treated for HCV before, including 4.1 percent who had been treated with direct-acting antivirals (DAA). A total of 11.1 percent initially had HCV that had mutations associated with resistance to the NS5A inhibitor class of DAAs.

All participants were treated with 12 weeks of Epclusa. Five percent of those without cirrhosis and 58.9 percent of those with cirrhosis also received ribavirin.

Seventy-one of the partcipants did not reach the 12-week post-treatment mark at the time of the study’s analysis, so they were excluded. This left 222 people, of whom 95.9 percent achieved a sustained virologic response 12 weeks after completing therapy (SVR12, considered a cure). After then excluding six people who were lost to follow-up and two people who died from the analysis, the researchers had a group of 214 people, of whom 99.5 percent were cured.

Only one participant—an individual with cirrhosis who was previously treated with Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) and ribavirin—experienced a relapse.

None of the participants experienced treatment-related adverse health events.

To read the study abstract, click here.