RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SERUM HCV MARKERS AND RESPONSE TO INTERFERON THERAPY IN CHRONIC HEPATITIS-C - EVALUATION OF HCV GENOTYPES DURING AND AFTER LONG-TERM FOLLOW-UP

Hepatitis C virus is the most frequent cause of chronic non-A, non-B h epatitis, and the antibodies to structural and nonstructural proteins encoded by viral genome have been suggested to be markers of ongoing H CV infection. We studied the behavior of these antibodies during inter feron therapy in 18 patients with chronic hepatitis C and also during a follow-up period of at least four years. A significant decrease of a nti-HCV titer was found only in patients who had shown positive respon se to therapy and all of them were anti-HCV negative at the end of fol low-up. Analysis by recombinant immunoblotting assay showed that only anti-c100 were affected by interferon therapy, whereas anti-c22 and an ti-c33 were not modified. Using polymerase chain reaction to detect sm all amounts of HCV genome in serum, we could confirm that the behavior of HCV-RNA during and after interferon therapy is similar to that of anti-HCV and the loss of anti-c100 seems to be closely related to HCV- RNA disappearance from serum. Our patients with chronic hepatitis C we re found to be of type 1b and 2, according to the recent score of Simm onds, and the clearance of serum HCV-RNA during treatment and its sust ained negative status are closely related to genotype 2 and to long-te rm positive response to interferon.