Management of a GIT Disorder
Student’s name
Institutional affiliation
Patient Diagnosis
The current patient is likely to be presenting with chronic hepatitis C. HL is known to be abusing drugs and is currently being suspected for possible hepatitis C infection. The presentation is also associated with chronic inflammation of the liver (Hunt, 2017). The possibility of the presentation being due to the side effects by the medication is ruled out by the drug profile of the current prescriptions. None of the medication is associated with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea as a side effect profile. Hepatitis C is common amongst drug abusers who share needles making it possible for the infection to be transmitted through blood from patient to susceptible drug user.
Appropriate Drug Therapy
The best drug for the current patient is vosevi. The drug is a combination of voxilaprevir, velpatasvir, and sofosbuvir. The use of combination treatment makes it effective against all the strains of hepatitis C (Taylor, 2019). The duration of treatment ranges from 8 weeks to 16 weeks depending on the severity of the infection and the presentation of the patient. In cases where the patient is presenting with severe symptoms including the onset of cirrhosis, the medication is used for 16 weeks.
Rationale for the Drug Selected
The rationale for the selection of Vosevi is supported by its activity against all strains of the virus. The patient will benefit from treatment regardless of the strain he is suffering from which is advisable since he has a history of drug use hence a possibility of multiple strain infection (Andres, 2020). It is also possible to alter the duration of treatment. It will help the patient and the primary care giver decide the best duration of treatment for the patient and reduce the possible ill effects of prolonged poly-pharmacy since the patient is on other medications as well.
References
Andres, J. (2020). FDA New Drug Approval: VoseviTM for Hepatitis C therapy in treatment-experienced adults. Headache, 17(25), 27.
Hunt, S. (2017). New Hepatitis C treatment. Nursing for Women's Health, 21(5), 335.
Taylor, J. G., Zipfel, S., Ramey, K., Vivian, R., Schrier, A., Karki, K. K., ... & Link, J. O. (2019). Discovery of the pan-genotypic hepatitis C virus NS3/4A protease inhibitor voxilaprevir (GS-9857): a component of Vosevi®. Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry letters, 29(16), 2428-2436.