Serum RANTES level influences the response to pegylated interferon and ribavirin therapy in chronic hepatitis C

Aim: Prediction of treatment responses to pegylated interferon (PEG IFN) plus ribavirin (RBV) therapy is uncertain for genotype 1b chronic hepatitis C.

Methods: In this study, 96 patients were investigated for the correlation between 36 pretreatment serum chemokine/cytokine levels and PEG IFN/RBV treatment efficacy by a sandwich enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) and a bead array.

Results: First, chemokines/cytokines were measured semiquantitatively by sandwich ELISA in 31 randomly-selected patients and the serum regulated on activation normal T-cell expressed and secreted (RANTES) level was found to be significantly higher in the sustained virological response (SVR) group than the non-SVR group (P = 0.048). Precise RANTES measurement in all 96 patients using a bead array confirmed this correlation (P = 0.002). However, the genetic RANTES haplotype was not significantly related to the serum level. The serum RANTES level was extracted by multivariate analysis (odds ratio = 4.09, 95% confidence interval = 1.02-16.5, P = 0.048) as an independent variable contributing to SVR.

Conclusion: The serum RANTES level is an important determinant influencing the virological response to PEG IFN/RBV therapy in chronic hepatitis C.