32 The Queens Courier • september 24, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com A TOP DOCTOR HOPES TO STAMP OUT LIVER DISEASE Dr. Stephen Esposito is a doctor’s doctor—a gastroenterologist often called by other doctors for treatment of digestive ailments. The Flushing gastroenterologist has been chosen every year since 2006 as one of the Castle Connolly Top Doctors, a yearly directory of peer-nominated doctors created after an extensive survey of thousands of American physicians. He came into his specialty after being inspired by a teacher in medical school, and his mother, who had ulcer problems which gave him personal motivation to treat the stomach, bowels, liver and gallbladder. Perhaps the most impressive of his accomplishments is Dr. Esposito’s work treating liver disease and Hepatitis C (Hep C), a contagious inflammation of the liver spread primarily through contact with the blood of an infected person. The doctor is third in the nation in the amount of patients treated for the disease, according to statistics taken by Gilead Sciences, the pharmaceutical company producing the most commonly used Hep C medication. Stamping out the liver diseases became his mission soon after receiving his license in 1989, the same year of the discovery of Hep C. The doctor developed his own skills to combat the disease as just more was being learned about how to correctly identify it and its causes. “I dragged my wife to every conference in the country on Hep C,” said Esposito, who remembers being excited by the chance to participate in the treatment of a newly discovered disease. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), increased AIDS education and new infection control practices helped decrease exposure to the Hep C virus by 1996. The annual number of reported new Hep C infections declined by more than 80 percent less than 10 years following the discovery of the virus. Much of the decline in new infections in the early years of the disease is due to advances in the development of medicine and treatment as well. Although the first Hep C treatment was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1991, the initial medication resulted in very few people surviving the virus. Today’s drugs to treat Hep C are more effective than ever, with little side effects, but according to Dr. Esposito there are new difficulties which slow down the process of curing the disease for good. The American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, a group of scientists and physicians committed to preventing and curing liver asset in the fight against Hep C, but one of the organization’s latest actions have conversely left many patients unable to get treatment. In 2014, guidelines released by the association stated that priority for treatment is recommended for patients with chronic HCV infection, especially those with conditions caused by advanced infection, such as advanced fibrosis There were an estimated 21,870 cases of acute Hep C in 2012, and there are currently an estimated 3.2 million people in the United States infected with chronic Hep C. Acute Hep C is a short term illness which occurs in the first six months of infection, but approximately 75 percent–85 percent of these people will later develop chronic infection, which can last a lifetime and lead to serious liver problems or liver cancer. According to Dr. Esposito, because priority for treatment is recommended for people with chronic Hep C, health insurance companies often refuse to pay for treatment if patients are not yet at that crucial stage. Sales for Hepatitis C drugs are higher than ever before, and prices have been rising to match the demand. In 2014, $10.2 billion was spent on the most commonly used medication, Sovaldi by Gilead Sciences, with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both reporting that each pill of the treatment costs around $1,000. The situation was slightly improved with the December 2014 FDA approval of a new, less expensive Hep C treatment. The drug, Viekira Pak from AbbVie, a rival company to Gilead Sciences, was subsequently approved by Medicaid to treat all Hep C patients, not just the chronically ill, and Gilead even created a new, less expensive treatment called Harvoni to compete in the price war. Dr. Esposito said that he believes that although insurance coverage for Hep C medication will become more available as prices go down, “the problem that will likely continue as ordinary people turn into victims of corporate healthcare systems.” Problems exist for patients because “a lot of these mail-away pharmacies are so big and disorganized, with so many poor staff. You have got to go through them to get approvals and you have no one that knows anything about this disease or even the criteria,” said Dr. Esposito. “It’s so sad.” Besides Hepatitis C treatment, Dr. Esposito also performs such routine procedures as hemorrhoid remedies and colonoscopies, the latter of which are necessary every 5-10 years after the age of 50. The doctor works to make colonoscopies more comfortable in a number of ways, offering a more effective precleansing method and allowing his patients to choose from a variety of tasty snacks after the procedure. “I’m Italian,” said Esposito. “I like to feed people.” Dr. Esposito is married and lives in Long Island with his two children, twin boys about Dr. Stephen Esposito a Doctors Doctor For patients convince there is a pharmacy in the building Patients Waiting Area
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