Real life experiences in HCV management in 2018

Introduction: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major cause of chronic liver disease, withapproximately 71 million chronically infected individuals worldwide. Treatment of chronichepatitis C has considerably improved in the last few years thanks to the introduction of directacting antivirals able to achieve sustained virological response in more than 95% of patients.Successful anti-HCV treatment can halt liver disease progression and solve the HCV-related extrahepatic manifestations, eventually reducing liver-related and overall mortality.Areas covered: With the aim to respond to unmet needs in patient’s identification, universal accessto antiviral therapy and treatment optimization in specific setting of HCV-infected patients, a groupof Italian experts met in Stresa in May 2018. The summary of the considerations arising from thismeeting and the final statements are reported in this paper.Expert commentary: All the advances on HCV cure may have a real clinical impact not only inindividual patients but also at the social health level if they are applied to all infected patients,independently from the stage of liver disease. Further improvements are needed in order toattain HCV elimination, such as the development of an enhanced screening program working inparallel to the present treatment options.