The American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) Annual Conference
The American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) held his annual conference in Boston this November. There were over 10,000 attendees, most of the researchers doing in-depth scientific research regarding and the liver. There were many liver specialists, hepatologists, there to see the latest and greatest on a liver transplant. It was a lot to take in as there were five sessions going on at each time slot. It was a little challenging to pick and choose which spot you needed to see in order to get the information you hoped to have. The exciting thing I learned this year was that people are now receiving hearts, lungs, and kidneys from people who are positive for hepatitis C as a donor. The recipient is treated with Glacapravir and Pibrentisvir, also known as Mavyret, for a period of 4 weeks of hepatitis C and allows patients to receive these organs. What a gift. It can shorten the time of weight to get a kidney from 2 years to less than two months. The sad part is getting these organs from the young opiate addicts who were overdosing. The risk to the recipient is the fact that the organ has been exposed to hepatitis C, but with this treatment, no one in the two trials I watched got infected. It is a great opportunity for those waiting on transplants to get their lungs, hearts, or kidneys now that there is such a great treatment for hepatitis C.
We at Love the Golden Rule, see anywhere from 3 to 7 Hepatitis C patients daily and our goal is curing them. We see cure rates at nearly 100%. Please continue to follow us as we hope to cure over 1000 patients this year. We are working on plans to cure even more in 2020. The challenge is linkage to care, and we are doing a great job with that by visiting methadone clinics in signing patients up for the opportunity to come in and have eight weeks of treatment to cure themselves. We will continue to work out the kinks in the system and who knows how many people we can sure in 2020. My goal is to stop the virus from spreading by getting two people before they have a chance to get infected for the ones you already have to need to get them cured quickly.
Hang onto your hats and watch this year. I won’t stop until we see hepatitis C eliminated from our community – It can be done as we’ve made significant advances.
