Enhancing treatment uptake for hepatitis C to achieve the elimination goals set by the World Health Organization could be achieved by reducing the treatment duration. The aim of this study was to compare the sustained virological response at week 12 (SVR12) after four weeks of glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (GLE/PIB) + ribavirin compared to eight weeks of GLE/PIB and to estimate predictors for SVR12 with four weeks of treatment through a multicenter open label randomized controlled trial. Patients were randomized 2:1 (4 weeks:8 weeks) and stratified by genotype 3 and were treatment naïve of all genotypes and without significant liver fibrosis. A total of 27 patients were analyzed for predictors for SVR12, including 15 from the first pilot phase of the study. In the ‘modified intention to treat’ group, 100% (7/7) achieved cure after eight weeks and for patients treated for four weeks the SVR12 was 58.3% (7/12). However, patients with a baseline viral load <2 mill IU/mL had 93% SVR12. The study closed prematurely due to the low number of included patients due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results suggest that viral load should be taken into account when considering trials of short course treatment.
Keywords: DAA; HCV; chronic hepatitis C; genotype; glecaprevir; pibrentasvir; predictors; ribavirin; viral load.