High prevalence of the new onset or worsening of Hepatitis‐C related musculoskeletal symptoms after commencing direct‐acting antiviral therapies: a challenging novel observation

Case series of 250 patients with hepatitis C found that 27.6% had chronic musculoskeletal (MSK) symptoms prior to direct acting antiviral therapy (DAAT), of which74% had worsening of MSK symptoms after DAAT, despite testing negative for hepatitis-C by PCR after treatment.

SPS commentary:

The paper highlights hepatitis-C related MSK symptoms are quite common and can be quite debilitating, and there has been understandable hope that a cure for their hepatitis-C, such as DAAT, might mean a cure for related MSK symptoms.  Authors state however that these results appears to mandate the monitoring of hepatitis-C-related MSK symptoms under the direction of their rheumatologists for many months after hepatitis-C is cured.

Arthritis & Rheumatology