Revised clinical practice guidelines for management of hepatitis C virus infection from EASL

The European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) has today (December 9) published its revised Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) on the management of hepatitis C virus infection (HCV), which supersede the previous version published in 2011 and are designed to help physicians and other health care providers optimize their management of patients with acute and chronic HCV.

It is estimated that around 160 million individuals, ie, 2.35% of the world's population, are chronically infected with HCV. In the European Union alone, between 7.3 and 8.8 million people are infected with HCV, double the previous estimate made in 1997. The prevalence varies across the region with higher rates seen in the south and the east, making HCV a critical area of attention for hepatologists as one fifth of HCV-infected patients are at risk of developing cirrhosis or liver cancer.

New products approved since previous guidelines