Baseline high viral load and unfavorable patterns of alanine aminotransferase change predict virological relapse in patients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 1 or 2 obtaining rapid virological response during antiviral therapy.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Rapid virological response (RVR) strongly predicts sustained virological response (SVR) in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC), and abbreviates antiviral therapy in some patients. OBJECTIVES:To identify factors predicting virological relapse (VR) in CHC patients who attained RVR. PATIENTS AND METHODS:Medical records of 133 CHC patients with an RVR after completing 24 weeks of antiviral therapy (a combination of pegylated interferon-? and ribavirin) were analyzed. Baseline characteristics and on-treatment responses were compared between the patients with an SVR and those with VR. Patients with normal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels at weeks 4 and 12 and at the end-of-treatment (EoT) and patients with elevated, but constantly decreasing, ALT levels were classified as having favorable patterns of ALT change. A trend of increasing ALT levels either between weeks 4 and 12 or between weeks 12 and EoT was classified as unfavorable. A high viral load (HVL) was defined as a baseline HCV RNA ? 600000 IU/mL. RESULTS:In total, 116 (87.2%) patients had a SVR and 14 (10.5%) had VR. The VR rates were comparable between patients with genotype-1 (13.1%) and genotype-2 infection (8.7%) (P = 0.572). Multivariate analysis revealed that HVL (P = 0.015; odds ratio [OR] = 14.754; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.671-130.240), and unfavorable ALT patterns (P = 0.039; OR = 4.397; 95% CI = 1.078-17.930) independently predicted VR. In subgroup analysis, low viral load (LVL) patients had a minimal VR rate (1.8%). Among the HVL patients, the VR rate of those using peg-IFN-?-2a was relatively low (9.1%). Patients using peg-IFN-?-2b had a slightly higher VR rate (23.8%; P = 0.128), and patients with favorable patterns of ALT changes had a lower VR rate (10.3%) compared to the 53.8% in patients with unfavorable ALT patterns (P = 0.005). CONCLUSIONS:In southern Taiwan, 24 weeks of antiviral therapy achieved a high SVR rate in patients with CHC attaining RVR, except in the subgroup of patients treated with peg-IFN-?-2b with HVL and on-treatment unfavorable ALT patterns.

SUBMITTER: Lin KH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3842527 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature