The interferon treatment of viral hepatitis type C has been payed attention, because of some cases with complete responses, many patients with viral hepatitis type C in our country, the drugs and so on. The cost of this treatment may exceed 200 billion yen per year, which affects the total medical care expenses.
The outcome of this treatment has been reported as follows: more than 30% of the treated cases were successful responders, however, the rest of them were not.
Many problems of this treatment should be solved, such as the indications (age, sex, or stages; acute, chronic inactive, chronic active, cirrhotic or quantity and/or subtypes of the virus), the selection of interferons (netural α, β, recombinant α2a or α2b), the doses and durations of the treatment, the side effects and how to prevent them, and how to reduce the cost.
In this symposium, the specialists reported these problems and suggested how to solve them, which would contribute to the selections of the patients and interferons, the estab-lishment of better results, reduction of the side effects, and benefit to both doctors and patients.
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