UNLABELLED  Introduction. Oxymatrine (OMTR) is widely used for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) in China. Several recent reports revealed that OMTR together with interferon yielded a higher sustained virological response (SVR) than interferon alone. AIM To elucidate this topic using meta-analysis of data from published randomized controlled trials (RCTs). MATERIAL AND METHODS The ...

The role of neutralizing antibodies (NAb) in determining responses to antiviral therapy has not been defined well. By using hepatitis C virus (HCV) cell culture system with the J6/JFH1 strain of HCV genotype 2a, we analyzed NAb responses in patients with chronic hepatitis C who received pegylated-interferon plus ribavirin (PEG-IFN/RBV) antiviral therapy. A total of 65 patients chronically infec...

Peginterferon alpha-2a and ribavirin combination therapy achieves a sustained virological response (SVR) in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Little is know about long-term durability of hepatitis C virus--Ribonucleic acid (HCV-RNA) negativity in patient treated with pegylated interferon and ribavirin therapy. Aim of this study was to evaluate the durability of virologic response in patients w...

BACKGROUND An early virological response (EVR) after the start of interferon (IFN) treatment for chronic hepatitis C leads to a successful virological outcome. To analyze an association between sustained virological response (SVR) and EVR by comparing TaqMan with Amplicor assays in HCV genotype 1-infected patients treated with pegylated (PEG)-IFN alpha-2b plus ribavirin (RBV). METHODS We retr...

Triple therapy of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection with boceprevir (BOC) or telaprevir (TVR) leads to virologic failure in many patients which is often associated with the selection of resistance-associated variants (RAVs). These resistance profiles are of importance for the selection of potential rescue treatment options. In this study, we sequenced baseline NS3 RAVs population-based ...

INTRODUCTION A large number of patients with chronic hepatitis C have not been cured with interferon-based therapy. Therefore, we evaluated the efficacy of amantadine combined with the standard of care(pegylated interferon plus ribavirin) in patients who had not responded to or had relapsed after ≥ 24 weeks of treatment with conventional interferon plus ribavirin. MATERIAL AND METHODS Patient...

BACKGROUND/AIMS The impact of virological factors and interleukin-28B (IL-28B) genetic variants on retreatment of hepatitis C virus genotype 2 (HCV-2) treatment-experienced patients remains unknown. METHODS On-treatment virological responses and IL-28B rs8099917 genotype were determined in 46 HCV-2 treatment-experienced patients (42 previous relapsers; four previous non-responders) retreated ...

The likelihood of a sustained virological response (SVR) is the most important factor for physicians and patients in the decision to initiate and continue therapy for chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection. This study identified predictive factors for SVR with peginterferon plus ribavirin (RBV) in patients with CHC treated under 'real-life' conditions. The study cohort consisted of patients from a...

BACKGROUND The efficacy of re-treating genotype I hepatitis C virus (HCV) patients who failed combination therapy with interferon/pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) and ribavirin remains unclear. AIMS To quantify sustained virological response (SVR) rates with different re-treatment regimens through meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). METHODS Randomized controlled trials of ge...

There are few data about the long-term histological outcome of HIV-/HCV-coinfected patients after therapy with interferon and ribavirin. We performed an observational study of 216 patients who received therapy against HCV and who had at least three successive transient elastographies (TE) during the follow-up. The primary endpoint was confirmed fibrosis regression, defined as a reduction of at ...