Objectives: To assess whether a combination of pegylated interferon (interferon conjugated with polyethylene glycol) and ribavirin can improve the response rate in patients with chronic hepatitis C who either did not respond to (Non-responders), or had relapsed after responding to (Relapsers) standard interferon and ribavirin combination therapy. Patients and methods: In this prospective study,...

Approximately 170 million people are infected with hepatitis C, and the sustained virological response rate to treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin is 30-50%. In an attempt to improve the chances of cure, boceprevir is being added to therapy, but it is associated with an increased incidence of adverse events. We herein report a case of acute pancreatitis developed during treatment ...

BACKGROUND Clinicians are incorporating patient-reported outcomes in the management of HIV-infected persons co-infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV), but there are no validated inventories to monitor symptoms of patients during HCV therapy. DESIGN Five-year retrospective cohort analysis of persons living with HIV (PLWH) treated for HCV. METHODS The HCV symptom-inventory (HCV-SI) was adminis...

BACKGROUND Lamivudine resistance develops in up to 80% of patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) after 5 years of treatment. Cross-resistance between nucleoside/nucleotide analogues limits management options in these patients. To investigate the role of pegylated interferon-α2a as rescue therapy in these patients, the efficacy and safety of pegylated interferon-α2a between treatment-naive pati...

BACKGROUND Hepatitis C virus infection is a global health problem. New direct-acting antiviral agents have been recently approved. However, due to their high cost and some genotypes remaining difficult to treat, interferon-based therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin likely may remain a component of hepatitis C virus treatment for some patients. Unfortunately, pegylated interferon / ri...

BACKGROUND Early treatment of acute HCV infection has been shown to improve virological response rates in HIV-positive patients; however, details on when and how to best treat acute HCV infection remain unclear at present. METHODS In this European multicentre cohort study, HIV-positive patients with acute HCV infection were offered immediate or delayed anti-HCV therapy, pegylated interferon o...

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype is an important predictive outcome parameter for pegylated interferon plus ribavirin therapy. Most published therapeutic trials to date have enrolled mainly patients with HCV genotypes 1, 2 and 3. Limited studies have focused on genotype 4 patients, who have had a poor representation in pivotal trials. Our aim was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of trea...

Objective: To determine the response to pegylated interferon-α treatment of HBeAgpositive hepatitis B patients with proven lamivudine resistance. Methods: Sixteen HBeAg-positive HBV patients with YMDD mutations were treated with pegylated interferon. Median treatment duration was 52 weeks (range 20–53), with a 26-week follow up. Results: Two of 16 (12.5%) patients seroconverted to HBeAg negativ...

BACKGROUND It is uncertain whether a 4-week induction period of pegylated interferon and ribavirin increases early virological response (EVR) in HIV-HCV-coinfected patients. METHODS HIV and HCV genotype 1- and 4-coinfected subjects were randomized to receive pegylated interferon-α2a 270 μg/week plus ribavirin 1,600 mg daily and epoetin-β for 4 weeks, followed by pegylated interferon-α2a at st...

INTRODUCTION Hepatitis-associated aplastic anemia is a common syndrome in patients with bone marrow failure. However, hepatitis-associated aplastic anemia is an immune-mediated disease that does not appear to be caused by any of the known hepatitis viruses including hepatitis C virus. In addition, to the best of our knowledge there are no reported cases of patients with chronic hepatitis C viru...