A randomized controlled trial of consensus interferon with or without lactoferrin for chronic hepatitis C patients with genotype 1b and high viral load.
Recently, lactoferrin has been reported to have anti-HCV effects. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of combination therapy using consensus interferon (CIFN) and lactoferrin in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Twenty-one patients with chronic HCV infection, who were positive for HCV-RNA genotype 1b with serum viral loads from 100 to 700KIU/ml, were randomly assigned to two groups; the CIFN + Lac group received CIFN with lactoferrin and the CIFN group received CIFN alone. Nine patients in each group completed this trial; the other patients dropped out because of side effects. Three, two and four patients were categorized as complete responders, relapsers and non-responders, respectively, in the CIFN + Lac group, and four, one and four in the CIFN group, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in virologic response between the two groups. During the follow up after CIFN therapy with continued lactoferrin, there were two relapsers in the CIFN + Lac group and their HCV-RNA titers before treatment were over 400KIU/ml. In conclusion, the combination therapy of CIFN and lactoferrin did not increase the response rate or prevent relapse after discontinuation of IFN.
Hirashima
Noboru
N
Department of Gastroenterology, Chukyo Hospital, Sanjo 1-1-10, Minami, Nagoya 457-8510, Japan.
Orito
Etsuro
E
Ohba
Kenichi
K
Kondo
Hajime
H
Sakamoto
Tomoyuki
T
Matsunaga
Seijiro
S
Kato
Atsunaga
A
Nukaya
Haruhiko
H
Sakakibara
Kenji
K
Ohno
Tomoyoshi
T
Kato
Hideaki
H
Sugauchi
Fuminaka
F
Kato
Takanobu
T
Tanaka
Yasuhito
Y
Ueda
Ryuzo
R
Mizokami
Masashi
M