PREDICTIVE FACTORS REGARDING THE RESPONSIVENESS TO INTERFERON THERAPYFOR PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC HEPATITIS-C - AN ASSESSMENT OF THE HYPERVARIABLE REGION-1 QUASI-SPECIES IN GENOTYPE 1B OF CHRONIC HEPATITIS-C

It is widely known that the hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype Ib is gen erally resistant to interferon (IFN) therapy. Some reports have descri bed various predictive factors regarding the responsiveness to IFN the rapy. In this study, we evaluated predictive factors, the age of the p atients, the level of HCV-RNA, the total dose of (IFN) and the level o f serum alanine aminotransferase (s-ALT), potentially regarding the re sponsiveness to IFN therapy for patients with HCV genotype Ib. In addi tion, the hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) quasispecies in association wi th interferon inefficacy has been reported. We investigated the HVR1 u sing a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) - single strand conformation po lymorphism (SSCP) analysis and thus attempted to determine whether or not an analysis of HVR1 quasispecies can possibly be used as a predict ive factor for the responsiveness to IFN therapy. We studied 104 conse cutive cases of chronic hepatitis C patients with I-ICY genotype Ib. E ighty-four patients from 104 could be assayed for the HVR1 quasispecie s. Seventeen patients had complete responses (CR) to interferon therap y, 67 patients had non responses (NR). In addition, there was a signif icant difference between CR and NR groups regarding the level of HCV-R NA; in contrast, there was no differences for the age of the patients, the total dose of IFN and the HVR1 quasispecies. The above findings t hus suggested that the level of HCV-RNA map be a predictive factor reg arding the responsiveness ta IFN therapy. However; the HVR1 quasispeci es was not found to be a predictive factor.