Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
9252877 | Hepatology Research | 2005 | 6 Pages |
Abstract
The aim of the present study was to assess the efficacy of the prolonged interferon monotherapy following combination treatment. Seventy-six patients were enrolled. Of these, 7 were withdrawn while undergoing treatment with interferon combined with ribavirin, and 12 remained positive for HCV-RNA at the completion of the combination treatment. We studied 57 Japanese patients with chronic hepatitis C due to genotype 1b HCV of a high viral load. These patients tested negative for HCV-RNA at the completion of the combination treatment for 24 weeks. After the combination treatment, 29 patients of the prolonged treatment group successively received interferon-α monotherapy for 24 weeks, while 28 patients in the combination treatment alone group received no medication. The rate of a sustained virologic response (SVR) was higher in the prolonged treatment group (41%, 12/29) than in the combination treatment alone group (25%, 7/28), but not significantly. Patients who became HCV-RNA negative by 4 weeks after the start of the combination treatment showed an SVR rate of 86%. The prolonged treatment resulted in SVR in all five patients who newly became HCV-RNA negative at 12 weeks. In conclusion, the prolonged treatment was effective for patients who newly became HCV-RNA negative at 12 weeks.
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Authors
Hideyuki Nomura, Yoichiro Kashiwagi, Hisashi Nakashima, Hironori Tanimoto, Junya Shimono, Eiji Kajiwara, Toshihiro Maruyama, Nobuyuki Yamashita, Masanori Nagano, Masashi Higashi, Tamotsu Mukai, Yutaka Matsui, Jun Hayashi, Seizaburo Kashiwagi,