Around 99 percent of patients successfully treated with pegylated interferon and ribavirin had no detectable virus for up to seven years.

The treatments were known to work initially but it had been unclear whether the virus would come back. Experts said it was good news for patients but that some still suffer from painful symptoms.

Many people are still unaware they are carrying the infection. Hepatitis C, which is contracted through infected blood, can cause cirrhosis, liver failure or cancer. Early treatment is usually effective.

Long-term cure

Professor Mitchell Shiffman, chief of hepatology at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School, and colleagues carried out a long-term study in 1,000 patients to find out whether the virus would come back.

Participants were given a course of injections of pegylated interferon alone or in combination with ribavirin. In those for whom treatment was successful (no detectable virus after six months) only eight patients tested positive for the virus in the following seven years.

The researchers pointed out it had not yet been determined if those patients had suffered a relapse or been reinfected. Professor Shiffman said: "We are encouraged by this data because it is rare in the treatment of life-threatening viral diseases that we can tell patients they may be cured.

"In hepatitis C today, we are able to help some patients achieve an outcome that effectively enables them to put their disease behind them."

It can take years or even decades for symptoms to appear. Anyone who ever shared equipment for injecting drugs - even if it was a long time ago, and even if they only did it once or twice - they could be at risk from hepatitis C.

Source:BBC