Sustained response after 1 year of treatment with interferon, alone or combined with ribavirin, in positive hepatitis C virus cirrhotic patients
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22491/2357-9730.124811Keywords:
HCV virus, cirrhoris, interferon treatment, ribavirin treatmentAbstract
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to assess the rate of end of treatment
complete response and sustained response in positive HCV cirrhotic patients that
were either treated with interferon only, or with interferon in combination with ribavirin.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 33 ambulatory HCV-positive cirrhotic patients,
without any other identifiable etiology of liver disease and classified as Child-Pugh A
were divided in a non-randomized manner into the following groups: Group 1 (n=13),
treated with subcutaneous doses of interferon (3 UM), three times per week, for 12
months; Group 2 (n=20), treated with the same interferon schedule as described
above, though associated with oral ribavirin (1000 mg/day) twice a day for 12 months.
Among the 33 patients, 24 (73%) were male, and the age of all patients ranged from
35 to 72 years (mean of 50.7 + 9 years).
RESULTS: The rate of end of treatment complete response and of sustained response
for Group 1 was 1/13 (8%) and 0/13 (0%) respectively, versus 11/20 (55%) and 7/20
(35%) for Group 2 (P<0.005). The groups did not differ significantly with respect to
age, sex, serum, serum ferritin, gamaglutamyl-transpeptidase, estimated disease
duration, degree of necro-inflammatory activity, and HCV genotype. Upon comparing
patients that did not present a sustained response (n=26) with patients that did
present a sustained response (n=7), we observed that the only predictor of sustained
response with statistical significance was the type of treatment employed (P<0.002).
CONCLUSIONS: Ambulatory patients with compensated cirrhosis caused by the
HCV, when submitted to the interferon and ribavirin treatment for 1 year, presented
a statistically significant higher rate of sustained response than patients submitted
to the interferon only treatment for the same period of time. There was no statistically
significant difference between the groups in terms of frequency of side-effects.
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