Initial daily interferon administration can gain more eradication of HCV-RNA in patients with chronic hepatitis C, especially with serum intermediate viral load.
OBJECTIVE
We studied the effect of initial daily administration of interferon for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C, especially in patients with intermediate viral load.


METHODS
Consecutive patients who met the inclusion criteria were randomly enrolled into two groups in this study. All patients analyzed could be treated with interferon-alpha for 6 months. Patients in group A were administered 6 million units of interferon-alpha subcutaneously daily initially for 2 weeks and then thrice weekly. Patients in group B were treated with the same dose of interferon-alpha thrice weekly from the first administration. We decided the criteria of complete remission as the absence of serum HCV-RNA at both points of the end of interferon treatment and 6 months later.


RESULTS
Due to the relationship between the efficacy and serum viral load, we decided the criteria of the intermediate load as the quantitative value of serum HCV-RNA to be not lower than 10(5.0) and not higher than 10(6.5) copies/ml. Seventy-six and 78 patients, whose genotype and quantitative value of serum HCV-RNA could be measured before treatment, were analyzed in group A and B, respectively. The rate of complete remission in group A (40.8%) was higher than that in group B (25.6%), significantly (p = 0.046). In the intermediate viral load group, the rate of complete remission in group A (52.3%) was significantly higher than that in group B (29.3%) (p = 0.045). In the patients with genotype 1 b virus, the rate of complete remission had a tendency to be higher in group A (33.3%) than in group B (17.4%) (not significant). In the patients with genotype 2, the rate of complete remission was higher in group A (77.8%) than in group B (41.2%) (significant, p = 0.041).


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that the initial daily interferon administration is necessary to gain a higher rate of serum HCV-RNA eradication in patients with intermediate viral load in chronic hepatitis C.
Nakamura
H
H
Department of Medicine III, Osaka University Medical School, Japan.
Ito
H
H
Ogawa
H
H
Takeda
A
A
Kanazawa
S
S
Kuroda
T
T
Yamamoto
M
M
Enomoto
H
H
Kimura
Y
Y
Zenda
S
S
Terabayashi
M
M
Saeki
K
K
Noguchi
S
S
Hara
H
H
Uemiya
M
M
Igarashi
A
A
Hayashi
E
E
D000328:Adult; D001706:Biopsy; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000187:drug effects*; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D007279:Injections, Subcutaneous; D016898:Interferon-alpha / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000009:adverse effects; D008099:Liver / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000097:blood / Q000187:drug effects*; D019562:Viral Load
D016898:Interferon-alpha; D012367:RNA, Viral