Anaemia telaprevir

A meta-analysis of eight studies that compared 24- and 48-week sustained viral responses (SVR) and drug-related adverse events between telaprevir (5 studies) and boceprevir (3 studies involving 2020 patients) triple-therapy regimens in the treatment of chronic HCV infection, also reported increased prevalence of anaemia and dysgeusia associated with boceprevir [70 ]. It was calculated that treating 100 (naive or experienced) HCV patients with boceprevir-based triple therapy would result in 21 additional instances of anaemia and 26 of dysgeusia linked to treatment. 

Observational studies In a retrospective study of the effects of telaprevir based triple therapy (telaprevir in combination with peg interferon alfa (peg IFNa) + RBV on nine patients) four patients were hospitalised because of adverse events (bacterial pneumonia, tacrolimus overdosing with renal failure, infectious enteritis, exacerbated diabetes mellitus and raised liver enzymes) [76=]. Anaemia (n=4), thrombocytopenia (n=4) and skin reactions (n = 3) were also reported. 

An exploratory study in Japan treated 15 patients with chronic hepatitis C (genotype lb) infection with telaprevir alone [77=]. They were treatment naive and received telaprevir 750 mg eight hourly for 24 weeks. 93% (n=14) of the patients experienced adverse events (AEs) with a total of 80 AEs. The most common events were rash (53.3%, n=8), anaemia (46.7%, n=7), raised low-density lipoprotein (40%, n=6), increased blood uric acid (26.7%, n=4), and pruritus (26.7%, n=4). There was a decrease in haemoglobin in all 15 patients, described as anaemia in seven patients. 

Sarikaya M, Dogan Z, Ergid B, Filik L. Telaprevir and anaemia what we learned from the first three patients. Scand J Infect EHs 2013 45(7) 575. 

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