BACKGROUND The relationship between 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] serum levels and response to antiviral therapy and laboratory data in HCV infection remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine pre-treatment 25(OH)D serum level among HCV infected individuals and to evaluate the association between vitamin D status, virological response, and laboratory data. MATERIAL AND METHODS Ba...

BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE Age is one of the predictors for sustained virological response (SVR) when treating chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients with pegylated-interferon/ribavirin (PegIFN/RBV). However, the treatment responses of the young patients had not been analyzed before. Therefore, we conducted this study to investigate the treatment responses of CHC patients younger than 40 years old (y...

BACKGROUND To compare on-treatment and off-treatment parameters acquired using acoustic radiation force impulse elastography, the Fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index, and aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC). METHODS Patients received therapies based on pegylated interferon or direct-acting antiviral agents. The changes in paired patient pa...

Chronic hepatitis C is commonly associated with extrahepatic manifestations. Cryoglobulins are observed in 40% to 60% of such patients and their presence seems to modify response to therapy. The new antivirals are greatly improving the sustained virological response (SVR); however, their high cost limits the use, leaving pegylated interferon plus ribavirin (PR) still the standard-of-care therap...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY: We assessed the association of CD4+ T-cell counts and HIV-RNA on sustained viral response (SVR) after therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin (PR) in HIV/HCV coinfected patients. We examined two large cohorts of coinfected patients treated with PR in Spain between 2000 and 2008. SVR was defined as undetectable HCV-RNA at 24 weeks after ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate predictive factors of treatment efficacy to interferon (IFN)/ribavirin in patients infected with HCV genotype 1b (HCV-1b). METHODS This study investigated pretreatment predictors, including viral- (aa substitutions in core aa 70/91 and NS5A-ISDR/IRRDR) and host-related factors (genetic variation near IL28B gene), to 48-week IFN/ribavirin in 490 Japanese adults infected w...

BACKGROUND/AIMS A combination of peginterferon and ribavirin is the standard therapy for chronic hepatitis C (CHC). However, the respective study has not been carried out in a large scale in Korea. The purpose of this study was to collect the studies that have been reported in Korea in order to analyze the therapeutic effect of combination therapy and compare to find racial difference. METHOD...

OBJECTIVE To establish the role of liver fibrosis as a predictive tool of response to pegylated interferon alpha (Peg-IFN) and ribavirin (RBV) treatment in human immunodeficiency (HIV)/hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfected patients, in addition to recognized predictive factors (HCV load, HCV genotype, IL-28B polymorphism). PATIENTS AND METHODS A sample of 267 HIV/HCV coinfected patients was trea...

BACKGROUND Levels of von Willebrand factor antigen (vWF-Ag) increase during combination antiviral therapy of chronic hepatitis C (CHC). The present study investigates the association between these changes in vWF-Ag levels and response to treatment. METHODS Changes in levels of vWF-Ag on antiviral combination treatment in 184 patients with CHC genotype 1 or 4 infections were measured prospecti...

Sustained virologic response (SVR) after antiviral therapy for recurrent hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in liver transplant (LT) recipients is consistently lower than that achieved in non-LT patients. We evaluated efficacy and safety of pegylated interferon (IFN) and ribavirin (RBV) therapy in LT recipients with recurrent HCV and factors associated with SVR. All subjects with histologic evid...