Antiviral therapy of hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is one of the world's leading infectious diseases. The interfer on-ribavirin combination therapy is the new standard for the treatment of h epatitis C in naive and relapse patients. Virological sustained response ra tes can be more than doubled by the IFN-ribavirin combination therapy compa red to IFN-monotherapy and treatment duration can be reduced to six months in many cases. The IFN-ribavirin combination therapy has a high relative be nefit in patients with unfavorable predictive parameters like high viral lo ad, HCV genotype-l infection and compensated Liver cirrhosis. Anemia is the most important side effect of the guanosin analogue ribavirin. There - are no official therapeutic recommendations for non-responder patients at pres ent. These patients should be treated within controlled clinical trials. Mo notherapy with PEG(pegylated)-interferons and combination therapies with PE G-interferons and ribavirin are the most promising future therapeutic optio ns.