HCV viraemia is more important than genotype as a predictor of response to interferon in sicily (Southern Italy)

Magrin, S.; Craxı̀, Antonio; Fabiano, Carmelo; Marino, L; Fiorentino, Germana; Iacono, Oreste Lo; Volpes, Riccardo; Marco, Vito Di; Almasio, Piero Luigi; Vaccaro, Alessandra; Urdea, Mickey S.; Wilber, Judith C.; Bonoura, Celestino; Gianguzza, Fabrizio; Capursi, Vincenza; Filiberti, Salvatore; Stuyver, Lieven; Pagliaro, Luigi

doi:10.1016/s0168-8278(96)80224-8

Cited by 34 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…However, Magrin et al [31] found in their study on 100 patients with HCV-RNA positive chronic liver disease that, in absence of cirrhosis, low pre-treatment serum HCV-RNA level is the most important predictor of response to IFN therapy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

Zekri

El-Din

Bahnassy

et al. 2007

Virol J

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

Zekri

El-Din

Bahnassy

et al. 2007

Virol J

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“…Several clinical relations with replication activity of the virus, including grade of disease and response to antiviral drugs, have been based on singletime-point determinations of viremia. 10,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] To date, conflicting results have been reported on long-term monitoring of viral replication. Different time intervals, ranging from diurnal to monthly determinations, have been evaluated using different methods of measurement, and discordant conclu- sions might result from the above-mentioned variables.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hepatitis C virus RNA profiles in chronically infected individuals: Do they relate to disease activity?

et al. 1999

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Fluctuations of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-RNA serum levels were monitored in a multicenter study in 76 chronic HCV carriers who had been followed longitudinally without receiving antiviral therapy to assess their relation with the course of liver disease activity. Forty-four patients had normal transaminases over more than 2 years, while 32 additional patients had fluctuating levels. Viral load was measured in serial serum samples prospectively collected for 10 to 12 months in 54 patients and in sera stored yearly up to 8 years in an additional 22 patients. In patients tested monthly, a lesser extent of fluctuations was detected in cases with constantly normal transaminases as compared with those with fluctuating transaminases. In the former group, the mean difference between maximum and minimum values observed in each individual patient was 0.7 Log, while in the latter group, it was 1.3 Log (P ‫؍‬ .0004). Most of these patients experienced, on average, three peaks of viremia over 1 year. The range of variation observed upon yearly testing was between 0.2 and 2.2 Log and did not reach statistical significance between the two groups. In conclusion, a careful viral replication profile can be achieved only by monthly testing, because longer time intervals could miss viremia fluctuations. HCV-RNA levels are more stable in asymptomatic HCV carriers than in patients with biochemical activity of liver disease. (HEPATOLOGY 1999;29: 585-589.)Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is characterized by persistent viremia. HCV RNA is usually detected in serum by sensitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based techniques and has become a useful tool for diagnosis and monitoring. Besides methods for qualitative detection of viremia, a number of procedures to quantify serum HCV RNA have been developed, including end-point dilution PCR, 1 competitive PCR, 2,3 isothermal nucleic acid amplification, 4 and signal-amplification branched DNA. 5 Routine use of these techniques in a wide clinical setting is hampered by problems of specificity and sensitivity, lack of reproducibility, poor standardization, and high cost. 6 Recently, methods for quantitative assessment of HCV-RNA levels have become commercially available and are being extensively evaluated in clinical studies, particularly in patients treated with interferons and antivirals. 7 Little is known about viral kinetics in untreated patients, because most evaluations of the level of viremia are based on single determinations. If wide spontaneous fluctuations occur, they could mimic treatment-induced effects or lead to under-or overestimate baseline values. In a few published studies, different time intervals have been evaluated and discordant conclusions have been reported. Either trivial or consistent differences of viral load over time have been described after observation periods ranging from days to months. [8][9][10][11][12] To assess the spontaneous behavior of serum HCV-RNA levels over a reasonable length of time upon close observation, we monitored chronic HCV car...

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“…Still, there was a long way to go towards true individualization of therapy, since the risk of overtreatment was still present for many patients not accurately classified by a genotype-based approach. It has long been known that viral load is also a major determinant of responsiveness to IFN-based therapy, whatever the schedule used for monotherapy [10] or for combination [11]. Problems with the reproducibility of quantitative measurements of HCV-RNA [12,13] have hampered a more widespread use of this predictor.…”

Section: See Article Pages 97-103mentioning

confidence: 99%