Quantitation and typing of serum hepatitis C virus RNA in patients with chronic hepatitis C treated with interferon-β

Abstract

We quantified serum hepatitis C virus RNA titers and determined hepatitis C virus subtypes in chronic hepatitis C patients treated with interferon‐β to investigate relationships among serum ALT response, serum hepatitis C virus titer and hepatitis C virus subtype. Of 146 chronic hepatitis C patients who received interferon‐β therapy, 24 patients with sustained serum ALT normalization (complete responders) and 26 patients without serum ALT normalization (nonresponders) were randomly selected. Detection, typing and quantitation of hepatitis C virus were performed by means of the “single‐tube” polymerase chain reaction method. Of the 24 complete responders, 21 (87.5%) became negative for hepatitis C virus RNA, whereas 21 (80.8%) of the 26 nonresponders remained positive. Hepatitis C virus infections with types I, II, III, IV, II + III and III + IV occurred in 0 (0%), 22 (51.2%), 10 (23.3%), 1 (2.3%), 7 (16.5%) and 3 (7.9%) patients, respectively. The mean pretreatment hepatitis C virus RNA titer of complete responders (0.4 ± 2.0 × 104 CID50/ml) was significantly lower than that of nonresponders (3.8 ± 4.5 × 104 CID50/ml) (p < 0.01). Regardless of HCV subtype, patients with more than 104 CID50/ml of HCV did not show serum ALT normalization, whereas complete serum ALT response was seen in most cases with less than 102 CID50/ml HCV. These results show that mixed infections with different hepatitis C virus subtypes appear to be more common than previously reported and that the pretreatment serum level of hepatitis C virus RNA is a more important predictor of outcome of interferon therapy than is virus genotype. (HEPATOLOGY 1993;18:1319–1325.)

Renal Transplant Recipient with Chronic Hepatitis C Who Obtained Sustained Viral Response after Interferon-.BETA. Therapy

“…Despite the risk of proteinuria, we elected to use IFN-, as the shorter duration of treatment was less likely to pre- cipitate renal rejection. IFN therapy is especially effective in patients with a low viral load and with HCV sero-group 2 (15,16,18), as in the present case. Recently, combination therapy with IFN-and ribavirin has been used for patients with a high viral load or with relapse, and higher rates of sustained-response have been achieved (19,20).…”

“…IFN-is typically administrated as daily intravenous infusions for 6 to 8 weeks. While the duration of IFN-treatment is shorter than that of IFN-, intravenous IFN-therapy appears to be as effective as IFNtherapy (15,16), but does have a higher incidence of inducing proteinuria. The increase in proteinuria is not due to renal injury per se, but rather may be secondary to neutralization of the anionic charge of the glomerular basement membrane (17).…”

CD4+/CD8+ ratio of liver-derived lymphocytes is related to viraemia and not to hepatitis C virus genotypes in chronic hepatitis C

“…Viraemia quantification may be assessed by a new assay that uses a branched DNA (bDNA) signal amplification [9]. It has been suggested that quantitative study of HCV RNA may be useful since patients with low HCV viraemia are likely to respond to interferon therapy [10]. Development of a chronic liver disease occurs in at least 50% of infected patients [II].…”

A potent antiviral effect on hepatitis C viral dynamics in serum and peripheral blood mononuclear cells during combination therapy with high-dose daily interferon alfa plus ribavirin and intravenous twice-daily treatment with interferon beta

“…[17][18][19] Although IFN-␤ binds to the same cell surface receptor as IFN-␣, it has been suggested that a second, receptor-associated protein is involved in generating specific downstream signals in response to IFN-␤. 20 Indeed, recent data highlight the fact that IFN-␣ and IFN-␤ trigger distinct biological responses in vitro.…”