Initial daily interferon administration can gain more eradication of HCV-RNA in patients with chronic hepatitis C, especially with serum intermediateviral load

BACKGROUND/AIMS: We studied the effect of initial daily administration of i nterferon for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C, especially in patients with intermediate viral load. METHODOLOGY: Consecutive patients who met the inclusion criteria were rando mly enrolled into two groups in this study. All patients analyzed could be treated with interferon-alpha for 6 months. Patients in group A were admini stered 6 million units of interferon-alpha subcutaneously daily initially f or 2 weeks and then thrice weekly. Patients in group B were treated with th e same dose of interferon-alpha thrice weekly from the first administration . We decided the criteria of complete remission as the absence of serum HCV -RNA at both points of the end of interferon treatment and 6 months later. RESULTS: Due to the relationship between the efficacy and serum viral load, we decided the criteria of the intermediate load as the quantitative value of serum HCV-RNA to be not lower than 10(5.0) and not higher than 10(6.5) copies/ml. Seventy-six and 78 patients, whose genotype and quantitative val ue of serum HCV-RNA could be measured before treatment, were analyzed in gr oup A and B, respectively. The rate of complete remission in group A (40.8% ) was higher than that in group B (25.6%), significantly (p=0.046). In the intermediate viral load group, the rate of complete remission in group A (5 2.3%) was significantly higher than that in group B (29.3%) (p=0.045). In t he patients with genotype Ib virus, the rate of complete remission had a te ndency to be higher in group A (33.3%) than in group B (17.4%) (not signifi cant). In the patients with genotype 2, the rate of complete remission was higher in group A (77.8%) than ingroup B (41.2%) (significant, p=0.041). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the initial daily interferon admini stration is necessary to gain a higher rate of serum HCV-RNA eradication in patients with intermediate viral load in chronic hepatitis C.