LUCKNOW, Oct. 2 -- A collaborative study involving SGPGIMS and KGMU in Lucknow, BHU-IMS in Varanasi, and AIIMS and GB Pant Hospital in New Delhi, with statistical expertise from CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, has found that an eight-week course of sofosbuvir-velpatasvir can cure hepatitis C in 98.8% of patients, almost matching the 99% cure rate of the standard 12-week regimen.

The findings of the trial, conducted over more than a year and published in The Lancet recently, suggest that hepatitis C treatment could potentially be shortened by four weeks without a meaningful reduction in effectiveness. This could have implications for treatment programmes in India and other countries.

The trial enrolled 880 patients ...