TREATMENT WITH NATURAL IFN OF HEPATITIS-C PATIENTS WITH OR WITHOUT ANTIBODIES TO RECOMBINANT IFN

The purpose of this study was to evaluate if a retreatment with natura l human interferon alpha could lead to a recovery of the therapeutic r esponsiveness in nonresponder patients with chronic hepatitis C who di d (9 cases) or did not (14 cases) develop anti-interferon neutralizing antibodies while on treatment with recombinant interferon alpha2a. Du ring retreatment, no patient developed detectable levels of neutralizi ng antibodies to natural interferon. At the end of retreatment, 6/9 po sitive patients showed a complete response to natural interferon Thera py, while only 1/14 negative patients had a partial response. These da ta suggest that a second course of treatment with the natural preparat ion may be useful in patients who failed to respond to an earlier cour se of recombinant interferon, particularly the anti-interferon positiv e patients who showed hepatitis reactivation after an initial response concomitantly with antibody appearance. Conversely, a second course o f natural interferon therapy might be useless in cases in which the la ck of response is not associated to antibody development.