PURPOSE To investigate the durability of response to peginterferon alfa-2a up to 5 years post-treatment and factors associated with response in hepatitis B e-antigen (HBeAg)-negative patients. METHODS HBeAg-negative patients received peginterferon alfa-2a (180 μg/week) ± lamivudine (100 mg/day) for 48 weeks as part of a multicenter, randomized study. The planned 5-year efficacy analysis inclu...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Individualization of treatment with peginterferon alfa and ribavirin in patients with chronic hepatitis C showed benefit in controlled trials and was implemented in treatment guidelines to increase response rates and to reduce side effects and costs. However, it is unknown whether individualization was adopted in routine daily practice and whether it translated into improved...

Rapid virologic response (RVR) and complete early virologic response (cEVR) are associated with sustained virologic response to hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapy. We retrospectively examined baseline and on-treatment factors associated with RVR (HCV RNA undetectable at week 4) and cEVR (HCV RNA undetectable at week 12, regardless of week 4 response). The analysis comprised 1550 HCV genotype-1 pat...

BACKGROUND A randomized, double-blind, multinational, phase 3 study was conducted comparing the efficacy and safety of peginterferon lambda-1a (Lambda)/ribavirin (RBV)/telaprevir (TVR) vs. peginterferon alfa-2a (Alfa)/RBV/TVR in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype-1 (GT-1) infection. METHODS Patients (treatment-naïve or relapsers on prior Alfa/RBV treatment) were randomly a...

INTRODUCTION A large number of patients with chronic hepatitis C have not been cured with interferon-based therapy. Therefore, we evaluated the efficacy of amantadine combined with the standard of care(pegylated interferon plus ribavirin) in patients who had not responded to or had relapsed after ≥ 24 weeks of treatment with conventional interferon plus ribavirin. MATERIAL AND METHODS Patient...

Hepatitis C virus infection can cause progressive liver injury and lead to fibrosis and eventually cirrhosis. Peginterferon alfa-2a represents a significant advance in the treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis C. The aim of the study was to investigate the efficacy, safety and tolerability of the therapy with Peginterferon alfa-2a plus Ribavirin in patients with chronic hepatitis C. The ...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Cross-sectional studies have documented that 2-10% of patients who are chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) are also positive for hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface antigen (HBsAg). Data related to HCV-HBV coinfection are lacking in Korea. This study evaluated the clinical characteristics, the treatment efficacy of peginterferon alfa plus ribavirin, and the changes ind...

Approximately 50% of patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1 treated with peginterferon alfa-2a/ribavirin discontinue treatment early or experience a suboptimal response despite 48 weeks of therapy. The objective of this analysis was to develop a model to identify nonrapid virologic response (non-RVR) patients who may be candidates for intensified therapy that would increase treatment ...

Peginterferon (Peg-IFN) alfa in combination with ribavirin represents the gold standard treatment for chronic hepatitis C, but is associated with various side effects, especially hematological abnormalities. We report here a case of severe autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA) complicated by symptomatic myocardial ischemia in a patient with chronic hepatitis C during combination therapy. The worse...