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Berge et al. Clinical outcomes of direct-acting antivirals

not see a clinical benefit as our study showed a Critical revision: A. Arencibia, E. Otón, F. Pérez
similar risk than what it is expected for untreated
cirrhotic patients [4,6] . In a recent study it has been Financial support and sponsorship
found that hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) None.
decreaseed after interferon-free treatment in patients
with HCV-related cirrhosis, but in patients with a pre- Conflicts of interest
treatment HVPG of 10-15 mmHg, clinically significant E. Berge, A. Arencibia, E. Otón, L. Cejas and S. Acosta
portal hypertension was only decreased in 43% [21] . In declare that they do not have anything to disclose with
our study, 4 out of 4 patients who developed clinical respect to this manuscript. F. Pérez: Advisory board for
decompensation had a previous history of ascitis or Abbvie, BMS, Gilead, Janssen and MSD.
were diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma during
the follow-up, suggesting a more advanced disease.
This may explain why no clinical benefit was observed Patient consent
in these patients, and suggests that a longer follow-up The data obtained through the medical record review
period may be needed. were managed according to the privacy policy and
ethics code of our institute.
In terms of the hepatic function, our study did not show
a significant improvement in the Child-Pugh and MELD Ethics approval
scores. This may be because pre-treatment scores This was a retrospective study and did not require
were already low. We also had no control group,
making it difficult to determine if the outcomes were Institutional Review Board approval.
better or worse than expected. We therefore performed
a statistic analysis comparing the mean platelet REFERENCES
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S. Acosta A sustained viral response is associated with reduced liver-related
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