Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) affects 170 million people worldwide and is the leading cause of cirrhosis in North America. Although the recommended treatment for chronic infection involves a 48-week course of peginterferon-alpha-2b (PegIFN-alpha-2b) or -alpha-2a (PegIFN-alpha-2a) combined with ribavirin (RBV), it is well known that many patients will not be cured by treatment, and that patients of European ancestry have a significantly higher probability of being cured than patients of African ancestry. In addition to limited efficacy, treatment is often poorly tolerated because of side effects that prevent some patients from completing therapy. For these reasons, identification of the determinants of response to treatment is a high priority. Here we report that a genetic polymorphism near the IL28B gene, encoding interferon-lambda-3 (IFN-lambda-3), is associated with an approximately twofold change in response to treatment, both among patients of European ancestry (P = 1.06 x 10(-25)) and African-Americans (P = 2.06 x 10(-3)). Because the genotype leading to better response is in substantially greater frequency in European than African populations, this genetic polymorphism also explains approximately half of the difference in response rates between African-Americans and patients of European ancestry.

BACKGROUND The extent to which diabetes mellitus or hyperglycemia is related to risk of death from cancer or other nonvascular conditions is uncertain. METHODS We calculated hazard ratios for cause-specific death, according to baseline diabetes status or fasting glucose level, from individual-participant data on 123,205 deaths among 820,900 people in 97 prospective studies. RESULTS After adjustment for age, sex, smoking status, and body-mass index, hazard ratios among persons with diabetes as compared with persons without diabetes were as follows: 1.80 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.71 to 1.90) for death from any cause, 1.25 (95% CI, 1.19 to 1.31) for death from cancer, 2.32 (95% CI, 2.11 to 2.56) for death from vascular causes, and 1.73 (95% CI, 1.62 to 1.85) for death from other causes. Diabetes (vs. no diabetes) was moderately associated with death from cancers of the liver, pancreas, ovary, colorectum, lung, bladder, and breast. Aside from cancer and vascular disease, diabetes (vs. no diabetes) was also associated with death from renal disease, liver disease, pneumonia and other infectious diseases, mental disorders, nonhepatic digestive diseases, external causes, intentional self-harm, nervous-system disorders, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Hazard ratios were appreciably reduced after further adjustment for glycemia measures, but not after adjustment for systolic blood pressure, lipid levels, inflammation or renal markers. Fasting glucose levels exceeding 100 mg per deciliter (5.6 mmol per liter), but not levels of 70 to 100 mg per deciliter (3.9 to 5.6 mmol per liter), were associated with death. A 50-year-old with diabetes died, on average, 6 years earlier than a counterpart without diabetes, with about 40% of the difference in survival attributable to excess nonvascular deaths. CONCLUSIONS In addition to vascular disease, diabetes is associated with substantial premature death from several cancers, infectious diseases, external causes, intentional self-harm, and degenerative disorders, independent of several major risk factors. (Funded by the British Heart Foundation and others.)

John C Martin Foundation.

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Chronic infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) affects 170 million people worldwide and is an important cause of liver-related morbidity and mortality. The standard of care therapy combines pegylated interferon (pegIFN) alpha and ribavirin (RBV), and is associated with a range of treatment-limiting adverse effects. One of the most important of these is RBV-induced haemolytic anaemia, which affects most patients and is severe enough to require dose modification in up to 15% of patients. Here we show that genetic variants leading to inosine triphosphatase deficiency, a condition not thought to be clinically important, protect against haemolytic anaemia in hepatitis-C-infected patients receiving RBV.

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Background & Aims-Patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections are treated with pegylated interferon and ribavirin (PEG-IFN/RBV), which is effective in less than 50% of those infected with HCV genotype 1. Genome-wide association studies have linked response to PEG-IFN/ RBV with common single nucleotide polymorphisms in the vicinity of IFN-λ genes on chromosome 19. We investigated the association between the polymorphism rs12979860 and treatment response in a diverse cohort of chronic HCV patients.

Genetic variation in the IL28B region has been associated with sustained virological response (SVR) rates in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients treated with peginterferon-α and ribavirin. We hypothesized that IL28B polymorphism is associated with intrahepatic expression of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs), known to influence treatment outcome. IL28B genotyping (rs12979860) and whole-genome RNA expression were performed using liver biopsies from 61 North American CHC patients. After correction for multiple testing (false discovery rate < 0.10), 164 transcripts were found to be differentially expressed by IL28B-type. The interferon signaling pathway was the most enriched canonical pathway differentially expressed by IL28B-type (p < 10−5), with most genes showing higher expression in livers of individuals carrying the poor-response IL28B-type. In 25 patients for which treatment response data were available, IL28B-type was associated with SVR (p = 0.0054). ISG expression was also associated with SVR; however, this was not independent of IL28B-type. Analysis of miR-122 expression in liver biopsies showed reduced miR-122 levels associated with poorer treatment outcome, independently of IL28B-type. No association was observed between IL28B-type and levels of liver IL28B or IL28A mRNA expression. IL28B protein sequence variants associated with rs12979860 were therefore investigated in vitro: no differences in ISG induction or inhibition of HCV replication were observed in Huh7.5 cells. Conclusion The good response IL28B variant was strongly associated with lower level ISG expression. The results suggest that IL28B genotype may explain the relationship between hepatic ISG expression and HCV treatment outcome, and this is independent of miR-122 expression. IL28B-type was not associated with intrahepatic IL28B mRNA expression in vivo. Further investigation of the precise molecular mechanism(s) by which IL28B genetic variation influences HCV outcomes is warranted.