Double Filtration Plasmapheresis in Treatment of Patients With Co-Infection of Hepatitis C and Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

Abstract

One of the main causes of mortality of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients are complications of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV). Combining drug therapy for HCV with double filtration plasmapheresis (DFPP) has significantly increased the effectiveness of treatment for these patients. However, there are no data on the use of this method for the treatment of patients co-infected with HIV and HCV. We demonstrated that positive clinical effect in the treatment of HCV patients by DFPP (previously demonstrated) is also achieved in the treatment of HIV infected patients, co-infected with HCV. The obtained efficiency of 62.5% is almost two times higher than the predicted treatment efficiency. We can conclude that the complex therapy of hepatitis C, including DFPP and medication by PEG-IFN + RBV is an effective and safe approach for the treatment of HCV in patients co-infected with HCV and HIV.