By Veronique LaCapra, St. Louis Public Radio
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-969114.mp3
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The FDA has approved a new drug to treat hepatitis C, a virus that can cause liver damage and cancer. A second drug is expected to get approval soon, and researchers say both new medications should improve recovery rates for this hard-to-treat disease.
In the U.S., existing medications cure only about 50 percent of patients with Hepatits C. Most have what's known as the genotype 1 form of the virus.
Dr. Adrian Di Bisceglie of Saint Louis University says that form is the hardest to treat, with a cure rate of only about 40 percent.
Di Bisceglie helped test how patients responded when one of the new drugs, telaprevir, was added to the current two-drug treatment.
"The cure rates go from the 40 percent number that I mentioned in patients with genotype 1, to 75 percent," Dr. Bisceglie says.
A similar drug, called boceprevir, got FDA approval today. Di Besceglie expects telaprevir to follow by the end of the month and says both drugs should both be available to patients in June.
More than 3 million Americans have hepatitis C, which is mainly spread by blood-to-blood contact. About three-quarters of them don't know they have it.