IL28Bpolymorphisms do not predict response to therapy in chronic hepatitis C with HCV genotype 5: Table 1

Effect of IL28B genotype on hepatitis B and C virus infection

“…Some studies showed only an influence of IL28B on rapid viral response (RVR) but not on SVR in genotypes 2 and 3 [6,12,13]. There is only little data available on genotypes 5 and 6 HCV infection, and so far published studies include only small numbers of patients [14,15].…”

Hepatitis C Virus Genotype 5

“…11 In the only prospective therapeutic data available to date, D'Heygere et al 21 documented 55.3% of SVR, 21 which is not far different from the aforementioned retrospective studies. 20 As previously outlined, our HCV-5 patients were predominantly females of advanced age, 55.6% presenting high pretreatment viral load, whereas 62.5% had advanced liver fibrosis, probably because of "old" infection. 21 The highest ever response (83%) was reported by a Belgian study, in which the number of patients (n = 6) were inherently low for consistent results.…”

“…7,18,19 In yet another retrospective study, 13 of the 26 patients interrupted treatment on week 24 (because of personal, financial or medical reasons), and no effect of treatment duration (24 vs. 48 wk) was found on SVR. 20,21 Notably, there is not always a substantial variation in the HCV-5 SVR rates among studies suggesting, 18 and those questioning, 21 a comparable therapeutic sensitivity to HCV genotypes 2/3, for instance, SVR was 60% in the study by Bonny and colleagues, which falls short of the 55.3% reported by D'Heygere and colleagues. Inversely, 2 more recent studies showed that the HCV-5 response was comparable to that in HCV genotype 1 patients, suggesting that the treatment schedule should be similar for both genotypes (ie, 48 wk).…”

“…Available studies assessing the responsiveness of HCV-5 to interferon-based therapies (Table 1) are characterized by extreme heterogeneity with respect to both treatment modalities (use of standard vs. pegylated interferon; PegIFNa-2a vs. PegIFNa-2b) and patients' therapeutic status (inclusion of relapsers) and are mostly retrospective, thus not allowing for robust conclusions. 20,21 Hence, we aimed to examine the response to combined antiviral therapy in a series of HCV-5-infected patients, all treatment-naive, prospectively treated at our institution with a 48-week pegylated interferon and ribavirin regimen. Indeed, some authors suggested that response of HCV-5 is better than that for genotype 1 and similar to that observed for genotypes 2 and 3 (and therefore institution of 24 wk of treatment might be adequate), [17][18][19] although this is disputed in other studies.…”

IL28B Polymorphisms as a Pretreatment Predictor of Response to HCV Treatment

“…Because of its relative rarity, genotype 5 is often neglected in clinical trials. In 49 infected individuals of Caucasian descent, there were no differences in the SVR rate by IL28B genotype (47). Whether this lack of association is due to small sample size or due to the older age and higher fibrosis grade in these genotype 5 infected individuals remains elusive.…”