CASPER
THE FRIENDLY GHOST
There's new hope for an overlooked epidemic: Two powerful drugs are nearing the market that promise to help cure many more people of liver-attacking hepatitis C — even though most who have the simmering infection don't know it yet.
Surprisingly, two-thirds of hepatitis C sufferers are thought to be baby boomers who've harbored since their younger, perhaps wilder, years a virus that can take two or three decades to do its damage.
What could be a treatment revolution is spurring the government to consider if it's time to start screening aging baby boomers for hepatitis C, just like they get various cancer checks.
"We're entering a whole new era of therapy," says Dr. John Ward, hepatitis chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We really want to begin that clarion call for action for this population who's at risk."
Today's two-drug treatment for hepatitis C cures only about 40 percent of people with the most common variety of the virus, and causes some grueling side effects. Now major studies show that adding a new drug _either Vertex Pharmaceuticals' telaprevir or Merck & Co.'s boceprevir — can boost those cure rates as high as 75 percent. And they allow some people to cut treatment time in half, to six months, thus lessening how long they must deal with those side effects.
If the Food and Drug Administration approves the drugs — a decision widely expected this summer — they would be the first that work by directly targeting the hepatitis C virus. Specialists draw comparisons to the early 1990s when potent combination therapies emerged to treat AIDS. Many recently diagnosed patients are postponing therapy to await these new drug cocktails in hopes of a better chance at a faster cure, says Dr. Paul Pockros, hepatology chief at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif., who helped test telaprevir.
However, the bigger impact could come if more people get tested for hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus. It's often stigmatized as a risk only to people who inject illegal drugs. But the virus could have begun festering from a blood transfusion before 1992, when testing of the blood supply began.
Lapses in infection control in health facilities still occasionally expose people today. So could even a one-time experiment with drugs way back in college, something doctors are reluctant to ask a now middle-aged, button-downed patient to reveal, says Ward.
"It cuts across every segment of society," adds Dr. Arun Sanyal of Virginia Commonwealth University, past president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. "I can tell you our hepatitis C treatment clinic is a great social equalizer."
Surprisingly, two-thirds of hepatitis C sufferers are thought to be baby boomers who've harbored since their younger, perhaps wilder, years a virus that can take two or three decades to do its damage.
What could be a treatment revolution is spurring the government to consider if it's time to start screening aging baby boomers for hepatitis C, just like they get various cancer checks.
"We're entering a whole new era of therapy," says Dr. John Ward, hepatitis chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We really want to begin that clarion call for action for this population who's at risk."
Today's two-drug treatment for hepatitis C cures only about 40 percent of people with the most common variety of the virus, and causes some grueling side effects. Now major studies show that adding a new drug _either Vertex Pharmaceuticals' telaprevir or Merck & Co.'s boceprevir — can boost those cure rates as high as 75 percent. And they allow some people to cut treatment time in half, to six months, thus lessening how long they must deal with those side effects.
If the Food and Drug Administration approves the drugs — a decision widely expected this summer — they would be the first that work by directly targeting the hepatitis C virus. Specialists draw comparisons to the early 1990s when potent combination therapies emerged to treat AIDS. Many recently diagnosed patients are postponing therapy to await these new drug cocktails in hopes of a better chance at a faster cure, says Dr. Paul Pockros, hepatology chief at the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif., who helped test telaprevir.
However, the bigger impact could come if more people get tested for hepatitis C, a blood-borne virus. It's often stigmatized as a risk only to people who inject illegal drugs. But the virus could have begun festering from a blood transfusion before 1992, when testing of the blood supply began.
Lapses in infection control in health facilities still occasionally expose people today. So could even a one-time experiment with drugs way back in college, something doctors are reluctant to ask a now middle-aged, button-downed patient to reveal, says Ward.
"It cuts across every segment of society," adds Dr. Arun Sanyal of Virginia Commonwealth University, past president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. "I can tell you our hepatitis C treatment clinic is a great social equalizer."