Interferon retreatment for chronic hepatitis C

• Published in: Kanzo Vol. 36; no. 1; pp. 7 - 12
• Main Authors: FUNAOKA, Masato, KATO, Junji, HOSHINO, Takao, KURAMITSU, Tomoyuki, ISHII, Tohru, KOMATSU, Masafumi, MASAMUNE, Osamu, ONO, Tsuyoshi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: The Japan Society of Hepatology 1995
• ISSN: 0451-4203; 1881-3593
• DOI: 10.2957/kanzo.36.7

We studied the efficacy of Interferon (IFN) retreatment in twenty patients with chronic active hepatitis C who had no beneficial response to the initial IFN therapy. Seventeen patients had HCV genotype II, two patients had genotype III and one patient had genotype IV. The concentration of serum HCV-RNA was from 103 to 1010 copies per ml. Seventeen patient received 468-600 million units (MU) of IFN Alfa for 24 weeks and three patients received 252 MU of IFN Beta for 12 weeks. Three of twenty patients (15%) had complete response; normalization of ALT level and undetectable HCV-RNA for at least 6 months. The factors related to complete response were studied. One had genotype III and two had genotype II with low HCV-RNA titers (less than 105 copies per ml). These results suggest that indications of interferon retreatment for chronic hepatitis C are genotype III or genotype II with low HCV-RNA titers, even in patients who had no beneficial response to initial IFN therapy.