Hepatitis C virus kinetics during induction and standard 3 times a week interferon-alpha therapy

We studied HCV kinetics during the first 84 d of interferon-alpha (IFN) tre atment. IFN was administered either at a dose of 3 million units daily for the first 14 d and thereafter 3 times per week (t.i.w.) (induction treatmen t), or at a dose of 3 million units t.i.w. throughout (standard treatment). No patient had received HCV treatment previously, and all had a pretreatme nt viral load of < 1.2 x 10(6) IU/ml at screening. Ten patients ere gh en i nduction treatment and 21 received the standard t.i.w. regimen. Twenty pati ents were infected with genotype 1. At Day 2, the median HCV RNA level in t he induction group was significantly lower compared to that of the standard treatment group. This significant difference persisted during the study pe riod for patients infected with genotype 1, but was not maintained from Day 14 onwards for patients with genotype non-L At Day 84, 80% (8/10) of patie nts in the induction group, compared to 16% (3/19) in the standard treatmen t group, had undetectable (<600 IU/ml) HCV RNA levels (p<0.05). We conclude that induction treatment resulted in a significantly greater decline in HC V RNA levels than standard treatment.