Will Hepatitis C heal itself?

If you have a liver disease, you must actively seek treatment, because it often affects the patient's normal life. Hepatitis C is a common disease, and it is also contagious. Although it is not as contagious as hepatitis B, the harm of this disease is not small. Moreover, more and more patients are suffering from hepatitis C. So can hepatitis C heal itself?

Hepatitis C is a type of infectious liver disease. Although the population affected is not as large as that of hepatitis B, with the continuous development of hepatitis B treatment drugs and the increase in hygiene awareness, the number of people suffering from hepatitis B is decreasing. However, the incidence of hepatitis C has been on the rise. There is currently no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C, and there are not as many treatment drugs as there are for hepatitis B.

Can Hepatitis C be cured?

After hepatitis C becomes chronic, the disease progresses extremely slowly, and some patients may never develop the disease throughout their lives. It is not easy to see the immediate preventive effect of antiviral treatment on related complications. Therefore, blood test indicators such as viral load are used instead of clinical manifestations to evaluate treatment efficacy. If the viral load in the patient's body drops below the detection level after regular antiviral treatment, and the HCV RNA test is still negative 24 weeks after stopping the drug, the patient has achieved "sustained virological response, SVR", and the possibility of HCV recurrence is extremely small, and hepatitis C is clinically considered to be "cured". However, for hepatitis C patients who have developed cirrhosis, even if the virus cannot be detected in the body, regular B-ultrasound and AFP tests should be performed to detect liver cancer at an early stage.

What are the medicines for hepatitis C?

1. Peginterferon α-2b injection: This product is used to treat adult patients with chronic hepatitis C. Patients must not be in a stage of hepatic decompensation.

2. Sovaldi (sofosbuvir tablets) - suitable for use in combination with other medicines to treat chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in adults and adolescents aged 12 to < 18 years.

3. Bailize (daclatasvir hydrochloride tablets) - used in combination with other drugs to treat chronic hepatitis C virus infection in adults.

4. Suvipu (asunaprevir soft capsules) - combined with daclatasvir hydrochloride tablets, used to treat adult genotype Ib chronic hepatitis C (non-cirrhotic or compensated cirrhosis).

Currently, the standard treatment for hepatitis C used both at home and abroad is interferon combined with ribavirin antiviral treatment. Interferon can achieve the purpose of eliminating viruses by enhancing the body's immunity. There are two main types of interferon: polyethylene glycol interferon (PEG-IFNα) and ordinary interferon. The shorter the duration of hepatitis C infection, the milder the liver damage, and the lower the virus level in the blood, the better the antiviral treatment effect. In addition, the efficacy also depends on the patient's age, physical condition, viral genetic type and mutation, etc.