JPSIM Journal of Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine J Pak Soc Intern Med 2709-8729 2710-0804 Pakistan Society of Internal Medicine 10.70302/jpsim.v2i4.2166 jpsim.v2i4.2166 Original Research Efficacy and Safety of Direct-Acting Antiviral Drugs in Hepatitis C Virus Infection Genotype-3 in South Punjab Pakistan Ali Qazi Masroor masroorqazi@outlook.com * Imran Ali Shafique Sadaf Ullah Hafiz Muhammad Kaleem Sohail Sajjad Tariq Sohail Masroor Maria Chaudhary Ghulam Muhy-ud-Din Quaid-e-Azam Medical College, Bahawalpur Bahawal Victoria Hospital Bahawalpur Shaikh Zayed Hospital, Rahim Yar Khan Nishtar Medical University, Multan *Correspondence: Qazi Masroor Ali (masroorqazi@outlook.com) 14 12 2021 2021 2 4 299 303 15 09 2021 17 10 2021 Copyright © 2021 The Author(s) 2021 The Author(s) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective

To find out the safety and efficacy of direct anti-viral agents for the treatment of cHCVgenotype-3 infection.

 Methodology

This retrospective study included record 1536 cHCVpatient who were treated at medical outpatient department (MOPD) of Medical Unit-1 of Bahawal Victoria Hospital, Bahawalpur from April 2018 to April 2020. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was done 3 months after completion of treatment to note sustained virologic response (SVR). Patients were compared for various demographical characteristics, laboratory findings, comorbidities, types of direct anti-viral agents (DAAs) and treatment related adverse-effects.

 Results

In a total of 1536 patients, 725 (47.2%) were male and 811 (52.8%) female. Overall, mean age was noted to be

43.2+12.8 years. Overall, SVR was noted in 1447 (94.2%) patients while there was no statistically significant difference between SVR of different DAAs (p=0.0656). Significantly linked factors with No-SVR were found to be older age (46.2+12.3 vs. 43.8+10.4 years, p=0.0368), higher BMI (27.7+3.1 vs. 26.8+2.3, p=0.001), cirrhosis (49.4% vs. 8.4%, p

 Conclusion

Overall sustained virologic response with various kinds of direct-acting antiviral agents for chronic hepatitis C virus infection genotype-3 was noted to be good and comparable with real world data from different parts of the world. Increasing age, higher BMI, cirrhosis and non-responders/relapsers were found to have significant association with nonachievement of SVR. Adverse-effects related to different direct anti-viral agents were few and mild in nature.

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