BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy
Hepatitis
Don’t Delay, Get Tested Today!
The second annual national Hepatitis Testing Day arrives in just a few days, on May 19, 2013. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) spearheads this event as a call to action for health care providers and the public about testing for hepatitis infection. Who Should Get Tested for Hepatitis C? Anyone age 40 … Continue reading
A New Day for Hepatitis C: Shorter Treatment, Better Outcomes
Hepatitis C medications – while being the best game in town for treating this life-threatening disease – admittedly come with a significant burden in side effects for most patients. Medication combinations that can shorten treatment time and cure more cases of acute hepatitis C infections are welcome news to both patients and physicians. Dr. Daniel … Continue reading
Hepatitis C ‘Super-Spreaders’
Like ripples in a pond, every single hepatitis C-infected injection drug user is likely to infect an additional 20 people with this disease. Time is of the essence in stopping this disease spread, since about half of these transmissions happen in the first two years after the drug user’s initial infection. Not surprisingly, these drug … Continue reading
Hepatitis C News Round-Up
The hepatitis C virus affects 4 million people in the United States and research about this dangerous, liver-damaging virus carries on in earnest in laboratories around the world. New discoveries are continually being made about the hepatitis C virus to refine the effectiveness of current treatments and even explain why some people don’t respond as … Continue reading
Risks of Untreated Hepatitis C
Guest Blog: Elvin Montanez, Pharm.D., Senior Vice President at BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently added a boxed warning to some of the newer treatments for hepatitis C, warning patients to stop treatment if a systemic or progressive rash develops. Some media outlets treated this information as if it were … Continue reading
Facing the Next Disaster with Better Technology
As Hurricane Sandy made landfall, many hospitals throughout the region faced the difficult decision of whether to care in place for their patients after their generators failed or evacuate patients to other locations. Likewise, some individual households with chronically ill family members faced the same dilemma. The successful evacuation of the 700 patients from Bellevue … Continue reading
Vitamin-Virus Connection
Have you heard the buzz lately about vitamin B12 and hepatitis C? After a pilot study reported that vitamin B12 improved hepatitis cure rates, some of my patients have been asking whether vitamin B12 injections could up their chances of curing their hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The recent study I mentioned, which was published … Continue reading
The Scoop on Milk Thistle for Hepatitis C
Over the years, many of my hepatitis C patients have asked if milk thistle would provide additional benefit during treatment of their hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Since this herb doesn’t have any side effects (aside from a mild laxative effect in a small number of people), I’ve been open to my patients using it … Continue reading
Let’s Do This
Guest Blog: Kimberly M. Hicks, Pharm.D., M.H.A. It’s a tough road from diagnosis to treatment, but many hepatitis C patients – in spite of this path of uncertainty – step up to the challenge and say with unrelenting courage: “Let’s Do This.” As a clinical pharmacist providing drug therapy management and counseling to hepatitis C … Continue reading
Hepatitis C Testing: Taking Cost Out of the Equation
Here I am, back on my soapbox, calling for people to get screened for the hepatitis C virus (HCV). More than 3 million Americans are infected with this virus and a majority of these people don’t even know it! It’s to those estimated 1.6 million infected but undiagnosed people that I plead with, once again, … Continue reading
