Author information
1 Weill Cornell Medical College, Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation, New York, NY, USA. Electronic address: rsb2005@med.cornell.edu.
2 Vall d'Hebron University Hospital and CiBERHED del Instituto Carlos III, Barcelona, Spain.
3 AbbVie Inc., North Chicago, IL, USA.
4 Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, Reference Center for Viral Hepatitis, Moscow, Russia; Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, Moscow, Russia.
5 Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
6 Louisiana Research Center, Shreveport, LA, USA.
7 Hepatology Center of Buda, Budapest, Hungary.
8 Liver Unit, Carmel Medical Center, Faculty of Medicine, Technion Institute, Haifa, Israel.
9 Director of GHGCPR Research Institute, Ponce, Puerto Rico.
10 Klinical Investigations Group, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
11 Charles University and Central Military Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic.
12 CHU Estaing University Hospital, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
13 Private Practice, Bakersfield, CA, USA.
Abstract
BACKGROUND & AIMS:
Eight-week glecaprevir/pibrentasvir leads to high rates of sustained virological response at post-treatment week 12 (SVR12) across HCV genotypes (GT) 1-6 in treatment-naïve patients without cirrhosis. We evaluated glecaprevir/pibrentasvir once daily for 8?weeks in treatment-naïve patients with compensated cirrhosis.
METHODS:
EXPEDITION-8 was a single-arm, multicenter, phase IIIb trial. The primary and key secondary efficacy analyses were to compare the lower bound of the 95% CI of the SVR12 rate in i) patients with GT1,2,4-6 in the per protocol (PP) population, ii) patients with GT1,2,4-6 in the intention-to-treat (ITT) population, iii) patients with GT1-6 in the PP population, and iv) patients with GT1-6 in the ITT population, to pre-defined efficacy thresholds based on historical SVR12 rates for 12?weeks of glecaprevir/pibrentasvir in the same populations. Safety was also assessed.
RESULTS:
A total of 343 patients were enrolled. Most patients were male (63%), white (83%), and had GT1 (67%). The SVR12 rate in patients with GT1-6 was 99.7% (n/N?=?334/335; 95%CI 98.3-99.9) in the PP population and 97.7% (n/N?=?335/343; 95% CI 96.1-99.3) in the ITT population. All primary and key secondary efficacy analyses were achieved. One patient (GT3a) experienced relapse (0.3%) at post-treatment week 4. Common adverse events (≥5%) were fatigue (9%), pruritus (8%), headache (8%), and nausea (6%). Serious adverse events (none related) occurred in 2% of patients. No adverse event led to study drug discontinuation. Clinically significant laboratory abnormalities were infrequent.
CONCLUSIONS:
Eight-week glecaprevir/pibrentasvir was well tolerated and led to a similarly high SVR12 rate as the 12-week regimen in treatment-naïve patients with chronic HCV GT1-6 infection and compensated cirrhosis.
TRIAL REGISTRATION:
ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03089944.
LAY SUMMARY:
This study was the first to evaluate an 8-week direct-acting antiviral (DAA) regimen active against all major types of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in untreated patients with compensated cirrhosis. High virological cure rates were achieved with glecaprevir/pibrentasvir across HCV genotypes 1-6, and these high cure rates did not depend on any patient or viral characteristics present before treatment. This may simplify care and allow non-specialist healthcare professionals to treat these patients, contributing to global efforts to eliminate HCV.