Ola Elmadani
Mansoura University, Egypt.
Title: Tolerability of Hepatitis C Virus medication treatment; A comparison of psychiatric side effects.
Biography:
Dr. Ola El Madani completed her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from Medical school, Al Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt. She acquired her Master’s degree in Microbiology in 1986 and a Ph.D. doctorate degree in Virology in the year 1989. She currently works as an Assistant Professor and Director of Virology lab in Student health hospital, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.
Abstract:
HCV affects approximately 185 million people around the world. HCV infections are one of the few infections causing psychiatric disorders. HCV load in the human body per se induces an inflammatory process in the central nervous system. Patients suffering from Chronic HCV also endorsed comorbid psychiatric disorders like depression, sleep disorders, anxiety and bipolar disorder. The conventional gold standard treatment of HCV up till 2011 was the combination of Pegylated interferon and Ribavirin. This treatment was reported to interfere with the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Causing depression in about 45-60% of cases, anxiety, sleep disturbance, anger, irritability in 75% of cases, mania, sexual impairment and suicidal ideations. In 2011 HCV treatment has evolved from interferon-based treatment to direct-acting antiviral (DAA) Extensive literature review showed that psychiatric symptoms did not increase during treatment with DAA medication. Psychiatric symptoms even decreased with the DAA treatment. In this study we conducted a Medline and PUBMED search. Keywords that were used in the search included. Interferon alpha, Ribavirin, HCV, Sofosbuvir.
Conclusion: For the treatment of Chronic HCV.DAA was found to be more tolerable than conventional antiviral medication. DAA does not induce psychiatric disorders and does not exacerbate underlying psychiatric disorders.