[Therapy of chronic hepatitis C--virologic response monitoring].
OBJECTIVE
Virological testing is considered to be essential in the management of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in order to diagnose infection, and, most importantly, as a guide for treatment decisions and assess the virological response to antiviral therapy. The aim of this study was to determine the rate of a sustained virological response (SVR) and various factors associated with response rates in chronic hepatitis C infected patients treated with peg interferon alpha (PEG-INF) and ribavirin (RBV) combination therapy.


METHODS
A total of 34 patients, treated with PEG-IFN and RBV were studied. Serum HCV-RNA was measured before the treatment, 12 weeks following the start of the therapy and 6 weeks after the treatment cessation. SVR was defined as undetectable serum HCV-RNA 6 months of post-treatment follow-up, virologic relapse (VR) as relapse of HCV-RNA during the posttreatment follow-up. Serum HCV-RNA was measured with the Cobas Amplicor test.


RESULTS
At the end of post-treatment follow-up 19 (55.8%) patients demonstrated a SVR. The majority of the patients were genotype 1 (27), and the other were genotype 3 (5 patients) and genotype 4 (2 patients). There was VR in 6 patients 6 months after the therapy. In 9 patients HCV-RNA was positive after 12 weeks.


CONCLUSIONS
We demonstrated that patients with chronic HCV infection can be successfully treated with combination of PEG-INF and RBV. This result emphasizes also that post-treatment follow-up to identify patients with SVR or VR could be important.
Vojnomedicinska akademija, Institut za mikrobiologiju, Beograd, Srbija. nadakuljic@gmail.com
Nada
N
Kuljić-Kapulica
Dragutin
D
Jovanović
Dejana
D
Savić
Elizabeta
E
Ristanović
Darko
D
Nozić
Radmila
R
Rajić
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000998:Antiviral Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination; D005260:Female; D016174:Hepacivirus / Q000302:isolation & purification; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000821:virology; D006801:Humans; D000077190:Interferon alpha-2; D016898:Interferon-alpha / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D012254:Ribavirin / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D019562:Viral Load; D055815:Young Adult
D000998:Antiviral Agents; D000077190:Interferon alpha-2; D016898:Interferon-alpha; D012367:RNA, Viral; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols; D012254:Ribavirin; C100416:peginterferon alfa-2a