IL28B Polymorphisms Among Latin American HCV Patients

Latin America is a diverse region with more than 500million people and approximately 8 million HCV infected individuals. The recent description of genetic polymorphisms associated to the interleukin 28B gene that predicts the response to treatment in these patients has impacted the clinical algorithms of management. In this review we examine the studies of prevalence of the IL28B genotypes in the general population and in HCV infected patients in the region and its relationship with treatment response to peginterferon and ribavirin. We show that the prevalence in the different studies in the region show a CC genotype of the rs12979860 between 18 to 35 %. This particular SNP is more consistently associated with treatment response than rs8099917 in Latin America, as well as around the world.