Modern pharmacotherapy for hepatitis C

Hepatitis C, caused by the HCV, remains a serious threat to liver health, leading to cirrhosis, cancer, and liver failure. Until recently, treatment relied on interferon and ribavirin, regimens with low efficacy and severe side effects. However, a revolution occurred with the advent of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), which have dramatically changed the prognosis for patients. Modern DAAs such as sofosbuvir, velpatasvir, and glecaprevir provide over 95% efficacy with a short course of therapy (8-12 weeks) and good tolerability. These drugs act on key viral proteins: NS3/4A (protease), NS5A (virus assembly), and NS5B (polymerase), completely suppressing HCV replication. Pangenotypic regimens, active against all genotypes of the virus, which eliminates the need for preliminary genotyping in most cases, are of particular importance. Thanks to DAAs, hepatitis C has become a completely curable disease. The key tasks remain early diagnostics, increasing the availability of therapy, and individual selection of regimens taking into account the patient's characteristics.