Combination therapy with pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin for the treatment of untreated patients and relapsed with chronic HCV infection

Abstract

Objective To observe the efficacy of untreated and relapsed chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients treated with pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin.Methods A retrospective study was carried out to analyze the treatment with pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin of 64 untreated or relapsed CHC patients.Virologic responses,including rapid virologic response (RVR),completely early virologic response (cEVR),end-of-treatment virologic response (ETVR),sustained virologic response (SVR) and relapse rate were assessed.The study also analyzed the influencing factors of virologic responses.Results The RVR,cEVR,ETVR and SVR of untreated group were significantly higher than relapsed group(P ＜ 0.05).The relapse rate of untreated group was lower than the relapsed group (P ＞ 0.05).The RVR and cEVR of SVR group patients were significantly higher than no SVR group patients (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions The rate of virus response of untreated chronic hepatitis C patients with pegylated interferon alpha plus ribavirin therapy was higher than relapsed chronic hepatitis C patients,the relapse rate of former was lower than the latter.Acquisition RVR and cEVR are all the positive predictors of efficacy. Key words: Chronic hepatitis C; Pegylated interferon alpha; Ribavirin; Rrelapse