Abstract
Patients with chronic hepatitis C who do not respond rapidly to therapy have a low chance of acquiring sustained virological response (SVR). We tried a new regimen of treatment with peginterferon α2b plus ribavirin, arranged to continue it for 44 weeks after HCV RNA has disappeared in the patient's circulation. Subjects were 17 consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C (50.8 [21-68] years of age, 10 females and 7 males, HCV genotype 1, HCV RNA>100KIU/ml) whose serum HCV RNA remained positive at week 4 but became undetectable between weeks 5 and 24 of treatment. SVR rate for all patients enrolled in this study was 76.5%. Among patients with HCV clearance between weeks 5 and 12 (n=13), SVR rate was 76.9% (10/13), and among those with HCV clearance between weeks 13 and 24 (n=4), SVR rate was 75.0% (3/4). These data suggest that this prolonged therapy (i.e., 5∼24+44=49∼68 weeks in total) will be of use in patients who first cleared HCV RNA between weeks 5 and 24, though a larger number of patients should be examined to clarify whether this therapy is really superior to the current standard 48-week treatment.
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