Disease outcomes after DAA-induced SVR: Data from the resist-HCV cohort

Background and aims: Large scale, real life data on the long term course of liver disease after HCV clearance obtained with DAAs are still scanty, and the separate effects on hepatic and non-hepatic causes of death still unclear. Method: We evaluated 4147 patients (mean age: 65.7 ± 11.5 years, 57.6% males) included in the prospective RESIST-HCV cohort who started DAAs treatment in 22 centres between March 2015 and April 2017. All patients were follow after SVR to register liver-related and unrelated outcomes. The primary endpoint was the evaluation of survival since starting DAAs. Cox regression analysis was used to assess the predictors of liver-related and unrelated death. Results: Patients were observed for a median of 50 weeks (range: 1–199), 934 (22.5%) had diagnosis of chronic hepatitis (F3 in >90%), 2851 (68.7%) had Child A cirrhosis and 362 (8.7%) had Child B cirrhosis. Overall, 3766 patients (90.8%) achieved SVR while 381 patients (9.2%) were HCV-RNA positive at the last control. Fifty-five patients (1.3%) died during the observation: 25 of them died for liver related causes and 30 for unrelated causes (16: cardiovascular disease, 6: sepsis, 8: other). The lack of SVR was associated with an increased incidence of overall mortality in comparison to patients with SVR (hazard ratio [HR]; 28.9; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 16.5–50.8; p < 0.001) and death from liver-related and unrelated causes (HR: 18.5, 95%CI: 8.2–41.3; p < 0.001 and HR: 45.5; 95%CI: 19.3–107.4; p < 0.001 respectively). By multivariate Cox regression analysis lack of SVR (HR: 14.9, 95%CI: 6.3–35.1; p < 0.001) and Child B cirrhosis (HR: 29.4, 95%CI: 3.8–223.9; p < 0.001) were independently related with liver mortality. Independent predictors of liver-unrelated mortality were no SVR (HR: 41.77, 95%CI: 17.30–100.87; p < 0.001), Child B cirrhosis (HR: 3.00, 95%CI: 1.36–6.22; p = 0.006), BMI (HR: 0.89, 95%CI: 0.81–0.98, p = 0.023) and diabetes (HR: 2.38, 95%CI: 1.13–5.00, p = 0.022). Conclusion: In this real world setting using a variety of DAA regimens SVR reduced overall mortality and risk of liver-related and unrelated deaths at all stages of disease, nut mostly in Child A cirrhosis. The effect on cardiovascular deaths, which is evident also in the pre-cirrhotic stages deserves further follow up and investigation.