The duration of treatment for patients with early cirrhosis is determined by the cause of the disease. The basic treatment time for cirrhosis caused by hepatitis C is 8-12 weeks, which is almost 100% curable, and all intrahepatic lesions can be reversed. In the case of alcohol-induced cirrhosis, if the patient can keep from continuing to drink and intervene in different ways, the patient will also gradually improve, but the recovery is not as rapid as for hepatitis C. There are many very effective antiviral drugs that are not expensive and work well to keep the virus under control, but there is no cure yet. There are several drugs in development in the United States, and preliminary data look more promising, so a functional cure should probably be achieved in the next 5 years. A functional cure means that the patient’s surface antigens are removed and the patient’s viral load is reduced to a very low level. If a patient can achieve this state, the chances of having cirrhosis or liver cancer later on are essentially the same as in people who have not been infected.