Telaprevir in Genotype 3 HCV

Patients with genotype 3 hepatitis C who have advanced liver disease (cirrhosis) have a very high chance of developing fatal complications of their disease unless they receive effective treatment. Unfortunately the best drugs that are currently available to treat genotype 3 hepatitis C (pegylated interferon and ribavirin) only work in about 50% of patients with advanced liver disease and therefore a large number of patients who have failed treatment are waiting for new, better drugs. Currently there are no treatments available for these patients. Telaprevir is a new drug that is licensed to treat genotype 1 hepatitis C and which works very well in these patients. In patients with genotype 3 hepatitis C small scale trials and laboratory studies show that some patients do respond quite well and others respond a little bit when given telaprevir. In patients who have exhausted all other treatment options the investigators speculate that telaprevir treatment may help some patients by clearing their infection. The purpose of this study is to see if telaprevir can help these patients and to determine if the investigators can predict in advance which people can be helped.