The list of letters gets longer. After the A, of a food nature, the B and the C, now we also speak of delta hepatitis. The virus that causes it is a defect, and was discovered in 1977 by an Italian scholar, Mario Rizzetto. What does it mean? That the strain needs another virus, B, to reproduce, develop and create liver problems. The point about this pathology and possible treatments is made at the first International Congress for the treatment of Delta hepatitis – the Delta Cure International Meeting – organized in Milan by Pietro Lampertico, Full Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Milan and Director of the Unit of Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the Polyclinic of Milan.
Targeted therapies for delta hepatitis
The delta hepatitis virus is a very special virus: it is in fact a defective virus, which needs a portion of another virus, that of hepatitis B, to be able to replicate. “When we talk about patients with Delta hepatitis, therefore, we always talk about people who already have another viral hepatitis, hepatitis B. Worldwide it is believed that about 5% of all subjects with hepatitis B also have Delta hepatitis, in absolute numbers between ten and twenty million – explains Lampertico “.
Delta hepatitis also has another feature, linked to the natural history of the infection: this form of hepatitis she is extremely aggressive. The likelihood that patients with Delta hepatitis will develop cirrhosis, hepatic decompensation, liver failure, primary liver cancer or have to be transplanted is much higher than in patients who have hepatitis B alone or, for example, by comparison , hepatitis C alone.
Faced with this aggressive disease, medicine has long been without tools: “In the last thirty years we have not had any drug specifically dedicated, and approved by the FDA or EMA, for this disease”, Lampertico emphasizes “The great novelty of these last two years, but especially the last year, is the availability, for the first time in Europe, of an EMA approved drug, which is called bulevirtide, which is an entry inhibitor, which blocks the entry of the delta virus into liver cells. During the congress we will talk about this drug but also about phase 3 studies underway with other drugs with a different mechanism of action, and therefore potentially complementary. And then some molecules under study for HBV patients (ie positive for hepatitis B virus) monoinfected that could also be effective in patients with delta hepatitis “.
It is important to find out about the virus
The Congress represents a unique opportunity to present the news in all fields related to delta hepatitis, including diagnostics. “Unfortunately, the test with which the circulating genomic material of the HDV virus (HDV RNA) is identified is not widespread throughout the territory and is currently only possible in some centers in Italy; moreover, not all HBsAg positive patients are checked for the presence of the Delta hepatitis virus by searching for anti-HDVs – underlines Lampertico. “This is why it is important, also from a diagnostic point of view, to share all available information and the need for a more accurate diagnosis”.