Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection leads to slowly progressive hepatic fibrosis, which may eventually lead to cirrhosis. The most important new insights with regard to the clinical benefit of antiviral therapy probably concern the association between sustained virological response (SVR) and a prolonged overall survival as the most definitive clinical endpoint. In this study, Backus et al. were the first to show that SVR was statistically significantly associated with a reduced all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 0.7, 0.64, and 0.51 for HCV genotype 1, 2, and 3, respectively) in a large cohort of 16,864 patients with chronic HCV infection who were followed for a median duration of 3.8 years. However, these results were derived from the specific patient population of American veterans, among which there is substantial comorbidity, risk behavior, and a rather high mortality rate. This Recommendation is of an article referenced in an F1000 Faculty Review also written by Raoel Maan and Adriaan J. van der Meer.