QOL Assessment in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients Receiving Ledipasvir/ Sofosbuvir or Simeprevir/Peginterferon/Ribavirin in Clinical Practice

Recently, a clinical study using a Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ) showed that ledipasvir/sofosbuvir (LDV/SOF)-treated patients' QOL was more favorable than that of IFN/ribavirin (RBV)-treated patients. However, no study has reported QOL assessment in clinical practice. In this study, we compared the QOL between patients treated with LDV/SOF and those treated with simeprevir (SMV)/peginterferon (Peg-IFN)/RBV to provide QOL information in clinical practice. The subjects were 169 patients with type I chronic hepatitis C or compensated cirrhosis C (Child-Pugh Grade A) who were treated with SMV/Peg-IFN/RBV or LDV/SOF in Hitachi General Hospital. The QOL was assessed ≥2 weeks after the start of administration using the Japanese version of the CLDQ (Kida et al., 2008 version). The total CLDQ score in the LDV/SOF group was significantly higher than in the SMV/Peg-IFN/RBV group (6.59 vs. 6.38, respectively, p=0.007). In particular, the scores for 4 domains (abdominal symptoms, systemic symptoms, activity, and emotional function) in the former were significantly higher than in the latter (p