Concerns for long-term miravirsen use !!

A New Drug Shows Promise of Hepatitis C Cure From U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention March 29, 2013Researchers report success in blocking the hepatitis C virus's ability to colonize liver cells in 18 hepatitis C-infected patients with five weeks of treatment using the antisense oligonucleotide miravirsen. Fourteen weeks after miravirsen injections ended, hepatitis C viral loads were still undetectable in 5 of 18 patients.Miravirsen binds tightly to messenger proteins of liver cells and blocks the hepatitis C virus from colonizing the proteins, which the virus needs to survive and replicate. Without a foothold in liver cells, the hepatitis C virus does not have the chance to develop resistance to protease inhibitors such as teleprevir and boceprivir. As a result, hepatitis C patients could be able to stop taking interferon and ribavirin, which cause side effects like fatigue, anxiety, depression, flu-like symptoms, nausea, and diarrhea. Harvard University physician Dr. Judy Lieberman and Stanford University professor Dr. Peter Sarnow cautioned that long-term miravirsen use could be unsafe because it also targets "genetic material that helps suppress the development of fatty liver, liver fibrosis, and liver tumors" -- side effects of hepatitis C. Miravirsen does offer the side benefit of lowering cholesterol; hepatitis C patients taking protease inhibitors cannot take statins that lower cholesterol. Although miravirsen might not present a safe cure for hepatitis C, Sarnow and Lieberman stated that miravirsen could become part of a drug regimen that can keep hepatitis under control. Worldwide, 170 million people are infected with hepatitis C.