Amantidine is not effective in clearing HCV from the serum in patients who are not candidates for interferon therapy

Treatment of chronic hepatitis C patients with amantadine

“…5,21 On the other hand, in other studies, rates of 9.1% to 31% therapy termination were reported because of side effects. 6,7,10 In conclusion, this study does not support the findings of the Smith pilot study. 4 Amantadine therapy in CH-C patients may be effective for reducing biochemical markers, but not for the eradication of HCV RNA.…”

“…Unfortunately, this biochemical response was not sustained, and ALT returned to pretreatment levels when therapy was discontinued. In contrast to the encouraging results reported by Smith, other studies have demonstrated no significant decrease in HCV RNA with amantadine 200 mg daily monotherapy [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] (Table 4). However, the number of patients enrolled in those studies was relatively small, too small to confirm the efficacy of amantadine monotherapy in patients with CH-C.…”