Effects of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin on naive and retreat chronic hepatitis C patients: a retrospective study

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the effects of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin on naive and retreated chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients.Methods A total of 67 CHC patients were divided into naive group (n =35) and retreat group (n =32) based on their treatment history.And their virological responses [rapid virological response (RVR),early virological response (EVR),virological response to etravirine (ETR) and sustained virological response (SVR)] and risk factors were analyzed.Results ①RVR and EVR of naive group were 60％ (n =21) and 77％ (n =27),respectively,and the retreat group were 28％ (n =9),53％ (n =17).The differences between the two groups were significant (both P ＜ 0.05).On the contrary,CHC patients in both groups might achieve similar ETR and SVR rates (P ＞ 0.05) ; ② The relapse rate in the retreat group was higher than that in the naive group (22％ vs.10％).But the differences had no statistical significance (P ＞ 0.05) ; ③ CHC patients in the retreat group could achieve similar responses,including RVR,EVR,ETR and SVR (P ＞ 0.05) whether treated previously with standard interferon or pegylated interferon; ④ According to muhivariable logistic regression analysis,the retreated genotype 1 CHC patients has a lower SVR rate compared with naive genotype non-1 counterparts (OR =0.29 and 0.26,all P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions CHC patients in the naive group could achieve higher virological responses and a lower relapse rate compared to those in the retreat group.The previous treatment regimeu has no significant effect on virological responses of CHC patients retreated with Peg-IFN plus ribavirin.Genotype 1 and retreatment are both risk factors of achieving SVR. Key words: Hepatitis C,chronic; Interferon alfa-2a; Ribavirin