Date of Award

January 2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Medical Doctor (MD)

Department

Medicine

First Advisor

Joseph Lim

Subject Area(s)

Medicine

Abstract

Approximately 170 million people in the world and 3.9 million people in the United States are infected with the hepatitis C virus, which is also the primary reason for liver transplantation. Unfortunately, sustained virological response rates with genotype 1 infection is still at 42-46% after 48 weeks of treatment prompting researchers to constantly search for better treatments or adjuvants to treatments. In this retrospective study, we are attempting to characterize the effect of statins (or HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) on the virological response of patients who are HCV-infected undergoing standard treatment with peg-interferon and ribavirin. In this retrospective, cross-sectional study, we reviewed data from 445,402 patients in the ERCHIVES VA database. 222,701 of these HCV-infected patients had been treated with a statin for >30 days in addition to the standard therapy of peg-interferon and ribavirin and the same number of patients who were not treated with a statin were used as controls. We were able to conclude that there was a trend of a larger decrease in ALT levels in patients treated with statins compared to the controls. We were not able to accurately conclude whether or not patients treated with statins had a decrease in their HCV-RNA levels or an improvement in achieving SVR. These aims continue to be our goal, and are undergoing current analysis for future publications.

Comments

This thesis is restricted to Yale network users only. This thesis is permanently embargoed from public release.

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