QUANTITATION OF HEPATITIS-C VIRUS-RNA IN LIVER-TISSUE AS A PREDICTIVEMARKER OF THE RESPONSE TO INTERFERON THERAPY IN CHRONIC HEPATITIS-C

Recently, factors predicting the response to interferon (IFN) therapy against hepatitis C virus (HCV) have received much attention. To evalu ate the usefulness of the quantitation of intrahepatic HCV RNA as a pr edictive marker of the response to IFN therapy, we compared the amount of intrahepatic HCV RNA with serum levels in 16 patients. Eleven pati ents who had 10(10) copies/g or more of intrahepatic HCV RNA had incre ased level of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) after IFN therapy, while 4 of 5 patients who had less than 10(10) copies/g of intrahepati c HCV RNA achieved sustained normalization of serum ALT level and were designated as complete responders. Four complete responders possessed significantly less HCV RNA in the liver parenchyma than partial and n onresponders (P = 0.010, Mann-Whitney U-test), but the amount of HCV R NA in the serum was not significantly different between those groups. In conclusion,the results suggest that the quantitation of intrahepati c HCV RNA is a better indicator of the response to IFN therapy than se rum HCV RNA.