Objective: To evaluate the effect of shortened duration of pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) and ribavirin (RIB) treatment on sustained virological response (SVR) rates in treatment-naomicronve patients with chronic hepatitis due to genotype 2 or 3 hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and high pre-treatment viral load (>800,000 IU/mL).
Methods: Records of 142 patients with chronic hepatitis C (22 with cirrhosis) who had been treated with PEG-IFN and RIB for 24 weeks (Group A, n=88), both drugs for 12-16 weeks (Group B, n=39), or with PEG-IFN for 12-16 weeks and RIB for 24 weeks (Group C, n=15), were analyzed retrospectively.
Results: Overall, 81.7% of patients had SVR (Group A: 88.6%, Group B: 69.2% and Group C: 73.3%, p=0.02). Failure to achieve SVR was significantly related to treatment group (p=0.026 for Group B and p=0.002 for Group C, versus Group A), older age (p=0.023), higher liver biopsy stage (p=0.001) and presence of cirrhosis (p< 0.0001). In patients without cirrhosis, only the treatment group (p=0.018 for Group B and p=0.002 for Group C, compared to Group A) independently predicted failure to achieve SVR.
Conclusion: Shorter duration of PEG-IFN treatment (12-16 weeks) adversely affected the SVR rate in patients with genotype 2 or 3 HCV infection. However, increasing the duration of RIB administration (12-16 weeks versus 24 weeks) in such patients did not have any beneficial effect on SVR in patients receiving short-duration PEG-IFN.