patients and methods this cross - sectional study was conducted on 143 thalassemic patients with chronic hepatitis c, who were treated with a combination of peg-ifn and rbv regimen. the rs12979860 and rs8099917 polymorphisms were assessed as the most common polymorphisms near the il28b gene by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (pcr-rflp) method. objectives w...

Although treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) with the type I interferon (IFN) IFN-β lowers disease activity, the role of endogenous type I IFN in MS remains controversial. We studied CD4+ T cells and CD4+ T cell subsets, monocytes and dendritic cells by flow cytometry and analysed the relationship with endogenous type I IFN-like activity, the effect of IFN-β therapy, and clinical and magnetic ...

Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is associated with significant liver disease and is therefore an important public health problem. The current standard-of-care therapy for chronic HCV infection consists of a combination of pegylated (PEG) interferon (IFN)-α and ribavirin. Although this therapy effectively generates a sustained viral response in approximately half of treated indivi...

A 44-year-old man with chronic hepatitis C received three courses of interferon (IFN) therapy. HCVgenotype was lb, viral load was 1,200 kcopies/ml and interferon sensitivity determining region (ISDR) was the intermediate type before the 1st IFN therapy. The 1st and 2nd IFN therapies resulted in failure to yield a sustained response. Seven years after from the 1st therapy, viral load had decreas...

Background According to international guidelines, the treatment of HBV hepatitis can use both pegylated interferon (IFN) and nucleoside/nucleotide analogues with high genetic barrier (NNA). The main advantage of IFN based regimen is the possibility of immune control after a therapy with finite duration. The main advantage of NNA is the virological control during lifelong therapy. Objectives: To...

Background It is well known that the virological response after pegylated interferon (IFN) treatment in chronic HBV hepatitis is less than 50%. The main advantage of IFN is the finite duration of therapy. A response guided therapy in this situation would be very important in order to recognize earlier the patients with poor response. Unfortunately, Romanian guidelines for HBV hepatitis treatmen...

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is known to develop as a consequence of multiple genetic and/or non-genetic factors. A 27-year-old woman with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection developed severe PAH after interferon (IFN) therapy. Although most of the reported clinical courses of IFN-induced PAH are poor despite the discontinuation of IFN, the present patient was successfully treate...

Pegylated interferon-α and ribavirin (PEG-IFN/RBV) is widely used to treat chronic hepatitis C virus infection with notorious adverse reactions since the broad expression of IFN-α receptors on all nucleated cells. Accordingly, a Type III IFN with restricted receptors distribution is much safer as an alternative for HCV therapy. In addition, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) near the human ...