OVERVIEW

Pretreatment Assessment and Staging in Patients With HCV: A Primer for Clinicians Initiating Direct-Acting Antiviral Therapy is organized by Med-IQ.

Initial Release Date: October 1, 2018
Expiration Date: September 30, 2019

Target Audience:
This activity is intended for primary care clinicians.

Accreditation:
Designation Statement
The Indiana University School of Medicine designates this enduring material for a maximum of 0.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Course Description:
This activity provides an overview of the assessments needed before initiating direct-acting antiviral therapy, as well as an in-depth look at available methods for evaluating liver health in patients with HCV.

Statement of Need:
In a single county in Indiana, more than 200 patients have been newly diagnosed with HIV since 2014; 95% of these individuals are coinfected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). This rapid spread of infectious disease is due to injection drug use (IDU) of prescription opiates in a rural area with limited healthcare resources, which highlights the need for proactive and innovative healthcare. Experts do not believe that this scenario is limited to just this one county. Indeed, increased rates of HCV infection have been documented across the country. However, newer direct-acting antiviral therapies for the treatment of HCV have revolutionized care and make achieving a sustained viral response—a functional cure for HCV—an attainable possibility for almost all individuals with chronic HCV infection. Reducing the burden of HCV has important implications on an individual level and is a critical public health need.

Learning Objectives:
Upon completion, participants should be able to:
• Describe the process for determining fibrosis level and incorporate this information into the selection of appropriate HCV treatment.