Background/aims: We studied the effect of initial daily administration of interferon for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C, especially in patients with intermediate viral load.
Methodology: Consecutive patients who met the inclusion criteria were randomly enrolled into two groups in this study. All patients analyzed could be treated with interferon-alpha for 6 months. Patients in group A were administered 6 million units of interferon-alpha subcutaneously daily initially for 2 weeks and then thrice weekly. Patients in group B were treated with the same dose of interferon-alpha thrice weekly from the first administration. We decided the criteria of complete remission as the absence of serum HCV-RNA at both points of the end of interferon treatment and 6 months later.
Results: Due to the relationship between the efficacy and serum viral load, we decided the criteria of the intermediate load as the quantitative value of serum HCV-RNA to be not lower than 10(5.0) and not higher than 10(6.5) copies/ml. Seventy-six and 78 patients, whose genotype and quantitative value of serum HCV-RNA could be measured before treatment, were analyzed in group A and B, respectively. The rate of complete remission in group A (40.8%) was higher than that in group B (25.6%), significantly (p = 0.046). In the intermediate viral load group, the rate of complete remission in group A (52.3%) was significantly higher than that in group B (29.3%) (p = 0.045). In the patients with genotype 1 b virus, the rate of complete remission had a tendency to be higher in group A (33.3%) than in group B (17.4%) (not significant). In the patients with genotype 2, the rate of complete remission was higher in group A (77.8%) than in group B (41.2%) (significant, p = 0.041).
Conclusions: These results suggest that the initial daily interferon administration is necessary to gain a higher rate of serum HCV-RNA eradication in patients with intermediate viral load in chronic hepatitis C.