ANTIVIRAL THERAPY OF HEPATITIS-C - PRESENT AND FUTURE

Citation
Jh. Hoofnagle et al., ANTIVIRAL THERAPY OF HEPATITIS-C - PRESENT AND FUTURE, Journal of hepatology, 17, 1993, pp. 130-136
Citations number
31
Journal title
ISSN journal
01688278
Volume
17
Year of publication
1993
Supplement
3
Pages
130 - 136
Database
ISI
SICI code
0168-8278(1993)17:<130:ATOH-P>2.0.ZU;2-6
Abstract
The current recommendations for therapy of chronic hepatitis C are a 6 -month course of alpha-interferon in doses of 3 million units 3 times weekly. Patients should have compensated chronic liver disease with el evations in serum aminotransferases, serologic evidence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and chronic hepatitis by liver biopsy. At prese nt, a long-term beneficial response to alpha-interferon occurs in only 10-25% of patients. The modest long-term response rate and the restri cted recommendations for use of interferon leave several unresolved is sues regarding therapy of this disease. Do patients with atypical, sev ere or advanced disease warrant therapy? What is the optimal dose and duration of treatment? How can one increase the response rate to inter feron? How can one predict which patients are likely to benefit from t herapy? Which patients are likely to relapse if therapy is stopped? Ul timately, what is needed to answer these issues are better techniques to assess HCV infection and monitor therapy as well as more effective and better-tolerated agents that can be used alone or in combination w ith alpha-interferon.