Pegylated Interferon Plus Ribavirin in the Treatment of Active and Past Intravenous Drug Users Infected With Hepatitis C
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2011-08-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Hepatitis C infects as many as 300,000 Canadians. Up to 25% of those infected will develop
cirrhosis and be at risk for liver failure and liver cancer. Cirrhosis caused by hepatitis C
is the most common reason for liver transplantation in Canada. The largest group of infected
people are those who use injectable street drugs. However, people who continue to use drugs
are routinely excluded from scientific studies testing new treatments for Hepatitis C and are
generally recommended not to receive available treatments. Although several reasons are given
to justify excluding these people from treatment, little scientific evidence is available to
support it. We plan to examine how successful treatment with the current standard treatment
of pegylated interferon and ribavirin is in those who continue to use injection drugs. We
will compare the results of treatment of 70 active drug users to results of published
clinical trials (this is a change from initial plan to compare to treatment results of 70
local) reformed drug users). Our goal is to determine whether reasonable success rates can be
achieved in active drug users that would then further justify their routine treatment.
Phase:
Phase 4
Details
Lead Sponsor:
University of Calgary
Collaborators:
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Roche Pharma AG