Efficacy of 60 weeks treatment of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin in patients whose HCV RNA tuned negative by real-time PCR assay at 12 weeks

Abstract

Pegylated interferon combined with ribavirin treatment for 48 weeks is commonly used for chronic hepatitis C patients with genotype 1 and high viral load. Additionally, the 2010 guideline by the Study Group for the Standardization of Treatment of Viral Hepatitis Including Cirrhosis, under the auspice of the Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare of Japan newly recommends 72 weeks treatment for elder female or advanced stage patients, whose HCV RNA turned negative at between 9 and 36 weeks by real-time PCR. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of 60 weeks treatment in patients, whose HCV RNA turned negative at 12 weeks. SVR was achieved in 29 out of 30 cases. Among those cases, 8 females were over 50 years old, and 6 cases were advanced stage. Sixty weeks treatment is considered satisfactory for patients whose HCV RNA turned negative at 12 weeks.