title: Interleukin-28B polymorphisms are associated with an early viral response in patients receiving hepatitis C therapy.
abstract: Prediction of the efficacy of pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) plus ribavirin (RBV) therapy against hepatitis C (HCV) infection is valuable for determining its applications. This study investigated the relationship between the early response of HCV to PEG-IFN/RBV therapy and the inter-leukin (IL)-28B genetic polymorphism in patients with HCV infection. The genotypes of IL-28B rs8099917 T>G single nucleotide polymorphism were determined in 144 patients with HCV infection. Among them, 59 were treated with PEG-IFN/RBV. The frequency of IL-28B TT homozygosity was 75.2% in patients with HCV serotype 1 and 84.6% in patients with serotype 2. Multivariate analysis showed that IL-28B TT homozygosity (P=0.014) and the platelets number (P=0.030) was associated with the early suppression of HCV-RNA at 12 weeks after the start of PEG-IFN/RBV therapy. The IL-28B polymorphism was a significant pre-treatment predictor of the response to PEG-IFN/RBV therapy in patients with HCV infection.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, and.
authors.forename: Rie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Osaki
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nishimura
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Takeuchi
authors.forename: Hirotsugu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Imaeda
authors.forename: Yoshiaki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Okumura
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shioya
authors.forename: Tamio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakahara
authors.forename: Shigeki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bamba
authors.forename: Shinobu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nakajo
authors.forename: Yoshihide
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fujiyama
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Andoh