Ribavirin remains an important component of hepatitis C treatment in certain clinical scenarios, but it causes hemolytic anemia. A quantitative understanding of the ribavirin exposure-anemia relationship is important in dose individualization/optimization. We developed a model relating ribavirin triphosphate (RTP) exposure in red blood cells (RBCs), RBC lifespan, feedback regulation of RBC prod...

rs12979860 in interleukin 28B (IL28B) gene is associated with response to interferon-α therapy and natural viral clearance in hepatitis C. The role of this polymorphism is less known in hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. We evaluated whether rs12979860 was associated with outcomes of HBV infection. There were 651 individuals with persistent infection (387 with liver cirrhosis, 264 without cirrh...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a bloodborne infection that is one of the leading causes of liver disease. If left untreated, HCV can lead to cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, and death. The current standard of care for HCV is a combination of pegylated-interferon (peg-IFN) and ribavirin (RBV) in which the goal of treatment is to decrease complications and death due to HCV. HCV displays genetic p...

Several host (age, sex, race, fibrosis stage, interleukin 28B polymorphism) and viral factors (hepatitis C virus [HCV] genotype, viral load) allow estimating the response to interferon-based therapies (which includes first-generation protease inhibitors) before treatment. However, treatment should not be denied to any patient based on unfavorable factors alone. Metabolic conditions associated w...

Latin America is a diverse region with more than 500million people and approximately 8 million HCV infected individuals. The recent description of genetic polymorphisms associated to the interleukin 28B gene that predicts the response to treatment in these patients has impacted the clinical algorithms of management. In this review we examine the studies of prevalence of the IL28B genotypes in t...