BACKGROUND/AIMS The virologic response of Koreans to combination therapy for chronic hepatitis C is similar to westerns; however, dose modification occurs more frequently in Koreans. We evaluated the rates of peginterferon alpha-2a and ribavirin dose modifications and their effect on the virologic response in Koreans. METHODS Patients with detectable HCV RNA and enrolled from multicenters wer...

OBJECTIVES Microbial translocation (MT) through the gut accounts for immune activation and CD4+ loss in HIV and may influence HCV disease progression in HIV/HCV co-infection. We asked whether increased MT and immune activation may hamper anti-HCV response in HIV/HCV patients. METHODS 98 HIV/HCV patients who received pegylated-alpha-interferon (peg-INF-alpha)/ribavirin were retrospectively ana...

We examined whether hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1b core- and NS5A-region mutations are associated with response to peginterferon α-2b plus ribavirin combination therapy. A total of 103 patients with high HCV genotype 1b viral loads (≥ 100 KIU/mL) were treated with the combination therapy. Pretreatment mutations in the core region and interferon sensitivity determining region (ISDR) in the ...

Background. HCV infection is associated with lipid disorders because this virus utilizes the host lipid metabolism to sustain its life cycle. Several studies have indicated that higher concentrations of serum cholesterol and LDL before treatment are important predictors of higher rates of sustained virological response (SVR). However, most of these studies involved patients infected with HCV ge...

BACKGROUND Although new Pegylated Interferon is available, yet the conventional Interferon with the combination of Ribavirin is still the therapy of choice to treat the Hepatitis C patients. This study was conducted to investigate the response of different HCV genotypes in different age groups of chronic Hepatitis C patients treated with conventional Interferonα-2b (IFNα-2b) plus Ribavirin (RBV...

AIM To determine steatosis and fibrosis prevalence in hepatitis C patients after a sustained virological response achieved with direct-acting antivirals. METHODS Transient elastography with controlled attenuation parameter (CAP) was used to assess hepatic steatosis post-sustained virological response (SVR); the CAP technology was not available in the United States at study initiation. Liver s...

BACKGROUND Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of interleukin-28B (IL28B) have received considerable interest for their association with sustained virological response (SVR) when treating patients of genotype-1 hepatitis C virus (GT1-HCV) chronic infection with pegylated interferon and ribavirin (PegIFN/RBV). This study was to investigate the predictive power of IL28B SNPs for on-treatment r...

OBJECTIVE To determine Sustained Viral Response (SVR) to Interferon (IFN) and ribavirin therapy in chronic hepatitis C patients of genotype 2 and 3. STUDY DESIGN Case series. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY The Garden Clinic, Lahore, from June 1997 to August 2007. METHODOLOGY All patients of both genotypes 2 and 3 receiving combination therapy were included. Standard IFN with ribavirin was st...

Treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is lengthy, expensive and fraught with side-effects, succeeding in only 50% of treated patients. In clinical settings, short-term treatment response (so-called sustained virological response [SVR]) is used to predict prolonged viral suppression. Although ordinary differential equation (ODE) models for within-host HCV infection have illuminated the mechanisms...

Metabolic syndrome and allograft non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common occurrence after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). NAFLD and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are frequently associated. The association steatosis/HCV determines important implications for clinical practice: steatosis accelerates the progression of fibrosis and reduces the likelihood of obtaining a sustained vir...