View clinical trials related to Hepatitis A.
Filter by:A large number hepatitis B surface antigen positive individuals are HBeAg negative with normal liver tests. Historically, such patients were thought to have suppressed viral replication and were considered to be at low risk for complications. With the use of more sensitive technology, physicians are now able to identify a group of patients who are HBeAg negative, have normal liver enzymes, and detectable HBV DNA. Some of these patients develop signs of liver inflammation and fibrosis on biopsy. We intend to investigate whether normal, programmed cell death (apoptosis) plays a role in causing the silent liver injury in this group of patients. In other words the purpose of this study is to see whether apoptosis may be responsible for the silent liver death and injury that occurs in these so called inactive carriers who are HBeAg negative, have normal serum ALT values and HBV DNA > 10,000 copies/mL. In this study the liver biopsies would be routinely collected in the clinic and investigated for the evidence of inflammation and fibrosis, and special testing would be performed to detect for evidence of apoptosis. Around 30 patients from UHN would be participating in this study. This study will test the hypothesis that subjects who are HBeAg negative, have normal ALT and have HBV DNA ≥10,000 copies/mL will demonstrate an increased rate of apoptosis in liver tissue compared to healthy age-matched controls. If this hypothesis is confirmed, it will imply that the previous assumption that this group of patients has inactive disease is false and would implicate apoptosis as an important mechanism responsible for causing liver damage. If apoptotic activity is indeed elevated, further study of these pathways could potentially yield therapeutic interventions to inhibit apoptosis.
In France, 50% of the hepatitis C virus carriers develop chronic clinical hepatitis, which may lead to cirrhosis and liver transplantation. Transplant infection by hepatitis C virus is constant after transplantation. This recurrence usually causes chronic liver disease, in 50 to 80% of the patients. The interest of a long-term treatment with ribavirin alone after transplantation has not been clearly demonstrated. The objective of our study is to evaluate the efficacy of ribavirin as a maintenance treatment after a one year interferon-α / ribavirin therapy on hepatitis C recurrence in the transplanted liver.
Hepatitis C and HIV infect worldwide millions of people leading to a high rate of coinfected patient with eventually liver cirrhosis and endstage liver disease. With the currently best available therapy (peginterferon and ribavirin) only less than 50% of patients with HCV genotype 1 will respond. Unknown is what factors determine this difference in treatment outcome. Probably virologic and immunologic factors play a major role. By investigating blood samples of HCV / HIV coinfected patients and HCV mono-infected patients we would like to examine both virologic and immunologic factors possibly responsible for this difference.
Viral hepatitis C is treated with peg-interferon alpha 2a/2b and ribavirin. There is no treatment recommended for non responders patients. This study will evaluate the efficacy, after a second treatment with peg-interferon alpha 2a and ribavirin for 12 Weeks of the addition of interferon gamma in non responders patients
Viral hepatitis C prognosis is related to the presence of a fibrosis and to the risk of developing cirrhosis or hepatic cancer. The study will evaluate the efficacy of prazosin to make hepatic fibrosis regress, in patients with chronic hepatitis C and severe fibrosis.
The overall goal of the research project is to improve the outcome of medical care for injection drug users (IDUs) with Hepatitis C viral (HCV) infection. Hypothesis: An intervention designed to improve the rate of HCV treatment completion and sustained virologic response (SVR) in IDUs will increase access by integrating HCV medical care into a substance abuse treatment program.
- To evaluate if weekly psychological follow-up make opioid dependent patients in MMT able to accomplish 14 weeks treatment with Peginterferon alfa-2a (PEG-INF) and ribavirin to the same extent than non-opioid dependents. - To determine the efficacy of this anti-HCV treatment
Aim/Background: This study aims to investigate the necessity and efficacy of a hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine booster in children after liver transplantation. A universal mass vaccination program of HBV was launched for 20 years in Taiwan. The coverage rate is high and the effect is great. The carrier rate of the population under vaccine coverage decreased from 10-15% to < 1%. In Taiwan, most children who receive organ transplantation were vaccinated with HBV vaccine in infancy and well before the transplantation procedure. This vaccination background information on Taiwanese children is quite unique and not similar to the other countries in the world. The antibody generated by the vaccine usually wanes after a certain period even in normal subjects, let alone in subjects who receive organ transplantation and immunosuppressive agents after transplantation. At present, Taiwan is still an HBV hyperendemic area and the risk of exposure to HBV cannot be overlooked. Should children be given a booster dose of HBV vaccine after transplantation? And how about the immunogenicity of this booster dose in these immunocompromised hosts? If these children cannot obtain an adequate antibody titer, will the risk of HBV infection increase? This study is designed to answer these questions. As a pediatric hepatologist, the author's routine work is to take care of children who underwent liver transplantation. To take advantage of this, the investigators decided to study the efficacy and necessity of HBV booster vaccine in these patients. However, the results of this study should be able to be applied to any kind of solid organ transplanted patients. Method: The anti-hepatitis B surface antigen (HBs) titer will be checked in patients who received liver transplantation > 1 year ago. If the titer is < 10 IU/L, a booster dose will be administered. The humoral (anti-HBs) and cellular immunity (by ELISPOT to assay T and B cell specific proliferation) and cytokine assay will be done in these patients before and after the booster dose. A three-year follow-up will be performed to monitor the HBV infection in these patients. Expected Results: The investigators expect for those who survive one year more after liver transplantation to yield a relatively good response to HBV booster under adequate immunosuppression.
* Adding Amantadine to standard anti-viral treatment can improve sustained response rates in patients with chronic hepatitis C
This study evaluated the efficacy and safety of the combination of peginterferon alfa-2a plus ribavirin in treatment-naïve patients with HCV genotype 1b infection, compared with peginterferon alfa-2a monotherapy. Additionally, the study evaluated the efficacy and safety of the combination of peginterferon alfa-2a plus ribavirin in patients with CHC who had failed to respond to previous conventional-interferon based therapy.