Background and objective: A proportion of liver transplanted patients with recurrent chronic hepatitis have a sustained virological response to combination therapy with interferon plus ribavirin. However, the long term benefit of antiviral therapy with regard to hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA clearance remains unknown in patients with HCV recurrence. This study examined the long term biochemical, ...

Since 1986, interferon-alfa (IFN-α) monotherapy has been administered for patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC). However, sustained response rate is only about 8% to 9%. Subsequent introduction of ribavirin in combination with IFN-α was a major breakthrough in the treatment of CHC. Sustained virological responses (SVRs) rate is about 30% in hepatitis C virus genotype 1 (HCV-1) patients, and i...

BACKGROUND Transient elastography measures liver stiffness, which correlates with the hepatic fibrosis stage and has excellent accuracy for the diagnosis of cirrhosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C. AIM To assess prospectively the kinetics of liver stiffness in treated patients with chronic hepatitis C and compare them with the viral kinetics on treatment and with the final outcome of t...

Antiviral effect of interferon is mediated by the expression of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs). However, because of the difficulty in obtaining paired liver biopsies before and after interferon treatment, the key ISGs expressed in human hepatocytes and responsible for interferon-based antiviral activities in chronic hepatitis C remain illusive. Prior to a standard course of peginterferon pl...

BACKGROUND Pegylated interferon and ribavirin for 72 weeks improve sustained virological response (SVR) in HCV genotype 1 (HCV-1) slow viral responders. Whether interleukin 28B (IL28B) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes and on-treatment viral responses can identify non-rapid virological response (RVR) patients who benefit from 48 or 72 weeks of therapy remains unclear. METHODS Tre...

OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency of development of hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with chronic liver disease secondary to hepatitis C who had achieved sustained virological response with Interferon and Ribavirin therapy. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective descriptive study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan, from January 2007 to January 2012. ...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The impact of virological factors and interleukin-28B (IL-28B) genetic variants on retreatment of hepatitis C virus genotype 2 (HCV-2) treatment-experienced patients remains unknown. METHODS On-treatment virological responses and IL-28B rs8099917 genotype were determined in 46 HCV-2 treatment-experienced patients (42 previous relapsers; four previous non-responders) retreated ...

UNLABELLED Limited data are available about the efficacy of antiviral treatment in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-associated mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC), especially concerning the long-term effects of HCV eradication. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of MC on the virological response and the long-term effects of viral eradication on MC. We prospectively enrolled 424 HCV(+) patients ...

Objective: To determine end treatment and sustained virological response to conventional interferons and ribavirin. Methodology: This descriptive study was conducted from January 2009 to September 2011 at DHQ hospital Dir, KPK, Pakistan. Three hundred and forty-seven patients of chronic hepatitis C aged 18 to 60 years were given conventional Interferons alpha 2a and Ribavirin for six months und...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Patients infected with genotype 2b hepatitis C virus (HCV) generally can achieve favorable responses to pegylated-interferon plus ribavirin therapy (PEG-IFN/RBV). However, a proportion of patients show poorer responses and the correlation between viral sequence variation and treatment outcome remains unclear. METHODS The pretreatment complete open reading frame (ORF) seque...