Quantitation and typing of serum hepatitis C virus RNA in patients with chronic hepatitis C treated with interferon-beta.
We quantified serum hepatitis C virus RNA titers and determined hepatitis C virus subtypes in chronic hepatitis C patients treated with interferon-beta to investigate relationships among serum ALT response, serum hepatitis C virus titer and hepatitis C virus subtype. Of 146 chronic hepatitis C patients who received interferon-beta therapy, 24 patients with sustained serum ALT normalization (complete responders) and 26 patients without serum ALT normalization (nonresponders) were randomly selected. Detection, typing and quantitation of hepatitis C virus were performed by means of the "single-tube" polymerase chain reaction method. Of the 24 complete responders, 21 (87.5%) became negative for hepatitis C virus RNA, whereas 21 (80.8%) of the 26 nonresponders remained positive. Hepatitis C virus infections with types I, II, III, IV, II + III and III + IV occurred in 0 (0%), 22 (51.2%), 10 (23.3%), 1 (2.3%), 7 (16.5%) and 3 (7.9%) patients, respectively. The mean pretreatment hepatitis C virus RNA titer of complete responders (0.4 +/- 2.0 x 10(4) CID50/ml) was significantly lower than that of nonresponders (3.8 +/- 4.5 x 10(4) CID50/ml) (p < 0.01). Regardless of HCV subtype, patients with more than 10(4) CID50/ml of HCV did not show serum ALT normalization, whereas complete serum ALT response was seen in most cases with less than 10(2) CID50/ml HCV. These results show that mixed infections with different hepatitis C virus subtypes appear to be more common than previously reported and that the pretreatment serum level of hepatitis C virus RNA is a more important predictor of outcome of interferon therapy than is virus genotype.
Kobayashi
Y
Y
Third Department of Internal Medicine, Mie University School of Medicine, Japan.
Watanabe
S
S
Konishi
M
M
Yokoi
M
M
Kakehashi
R
R
Kaito
M
M
Kondo
M
M
Hayashi
Y
Y
Jomori
T
T
Suzuki
S
S
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000410:Alanine Transaminase / Q000097:blood; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000201:enzymology / Q000382:microbiology / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D016899:Interferon-beta / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000379:methods; D011379:Prognosis; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood*
D012367:RNA, Viral; D016899:Interferon-beta; D000410:Alanine Transaminase