Internal Medicine
Online ISSN : 1349-7235
Print ISSN : 0918-2918
ISSN-L : 0918-2918
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Efficacy and Safety of Combination Therapy of Natural Human Interferon Beta and Ribavirin in Chronic Hepatitis C patients
Yasuji Arase, Yoshiyuki Suzuki, Fumitaka Suzuki, Naoki Matsumoto, Norio Akuta, Norihiro Imai, Yuya Seko, Hitomi Sezaki, Yusuke Kawamura, Masahiro Kobayashi, Tetsuya Hosaka, Satoshi Saito, Kenji Ikeda, Mariko Kobayashi, Hiromitsu Kumada
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Keywords: chronic hepatitis C, depression, natural interferon-beta, ribavirin, HCV genotype 1b
JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

2011 Volume 50 Issue 19 Pages 2083-2088

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Abstract

Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of combination therapy of natural human interferon-beta and ribavirin for patients for whom prior interferon therapy was discontinued due to depression induced by interferon-alpha.
Methods Inclusion criteria were as follows; 1) HCV-genotype 1b, 2) serum HCV RNA level of ≥100 KIU/mL, 3) stopping the prior interferon-alpha monotherapy or combination therapy of interferon-alpha and ribavirin due to the appearance of depression. A total of 14 were enrolled in this prospective cohort study. The treatment period of combination therapy was 48 weeks. Depression states, reflected by Beck depression inventories and Hamilton depression rating scale, were assessed during combination therapy. Nonparametric procedures were employed for the analysis of background features of the patients with sustained virological response (SVR) and without SVR. A p value of <0.05 was considered to indicate a significant difference.
Results Five of 14 patients (37.5%) had SVR by the intention to treat analysis. The SVR rate in patients who showed negative HCV RNA at 12 and 24 weeks after the initiation of combination therapy was 100% (4/4) and 83.3% (5/6), respectively. All of the patients continued the combination therapy owing to disappearance of severely adverse events contained the exacerbation of depression. Combination therapy did not yield a statistical difference in Beck depression inventories and Hamilton depression rating scale.
Conclusion The combination therapy of IFN-beta and ribavirin is a possible therapy selection for the patients for whom interferon therapy was discontinued due to depression induced by interferon-alpha.

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© 2011 by The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine
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