Analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of HCV infection may lead to the sustained virological response.

Considerable progress has been made towards understanding hepatitis C virus, its pathogenesis and the effect of the drug therapy on the viral load, yet around 50% of patients do not achieve the sustained virological response (SVR) by the standard treatment. Although several personalized factors such...

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Main Authors: Saurabh Gupta, Raghvendra Singh
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2012-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3404063?pdf=render
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spelling doaj-d0d522a713844022a2c4c0e7ff19b2922020-11-25T01:22:44ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032012-01-0177e4120910.1371/journal.pone.0041209Analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of HCV infection may lead to the sustained virological response.Saurabh GuptaRaghvendra SinghConsiderable progress has been made towards understanding hepatitis C virus, its pathogenesis and the effect of the drug therapy on the viral load, yet around 50% of patients do not achieve the sustained virological response (SVR) by the standard treatment. Although several personalized factors such as patients' age and weight may be important, by mathematical modeling we show that the time of the start of the therapy is a significant factor in determining the outcome. Toward this end, we first performed sensitivity analysis on the standard virus dynamics model. The analysis revealed four phases when the sensitivity of the infection to drug treatment differs. Further, we added a perturbation term in the model to simulate the drug treatment period and predict the outcome when the therapy is carried out during each of the four phases. The study shows that while the infection may be difficult to treat in the late phases, the therapy is likely to result in SVR if it is carried out in the first or second phase. Thus, development of newer and more sensitive screening methods is needed for the early detection of the infection. Moreover, the analysis predicts that the drug that blocks new infections is more effective than the drug that blocks the virus production.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3404063?pdf=render
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Saurabh Gupta
Raghvendra Singh
spellingShingle Saurabh Gupta
Raghvendra Singh
Analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of HCV infection may lead to the sustained virological response.
PLoS ONE
author_facet Saurabh Gupta
Raghvendra Singh
author_sort Saurabh Gupta
title Analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of HCV infection may lead to the sustained virological response.
title_short Analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of HCV infection may lead to the sustained virological response.
title_full Analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of HCV infection may lead to the sustained virological response.
title_fullStr Analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of HCV infection may lead to the sustained virological response.
title_full_unstemmed Analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of HCV infection may lead to the sustained virological response.
title_sort analysis of the virus dynamics model reveals that early treatment of hcv infection may lead to the sustained virological response.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
series PLoS ONE
issn 1932-6203
publishDate 2012-01-01
description Considerable progress has been made towards understanding hepatitis C virus, its pathogenesis and the effect of the drug therapy on the viral load, yet around 50% of patients do not achieve the sustained virological response (SVR) by the standard treatment. Although several personalized factors such as patients' age and weight may be important, by mathematical modeling we show that the time of the start of the therapy is a significant factor in determining the outcome. Toward this end, we first performed sensitivity analysis on the standard virus dynamics model. The analysis revealed four phases when the sensitivity of the infection to drug treatment differs. Further, we added a perturbation term in the model to simulate the drug treatment period and predict the outcome when the therapy is carried out during each of the four phases. The study shows that while the infection may be difficult to treat in the late phases, the therapy is likely to result in SVR if it is carried out in the first or second phase. Thus, development of newer and more sensitive screening methods is needed for the early detection of the infection. Moreover, the analysis predicts that the drug that blocks new infections is more effective than the drug that blocks the virus production.
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3404063?pdf=render
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