Hepatitis C is a health care problem all over the world, with 130 million patients infected the world over. The treatment is expensive and has variable results according to the genotype of the infecting virus. The first land mark in treatment is the virus clearance at the end of the treatment called End Treatment Response (ETR), but many of the patients achieving the ETR have a relapse within the next six months. Thus, the goal of treatment is to have persistent virus clearance until six months after completing the treatment. This is called Sustained Virological Response (SVR). It is difficult to predict the SVR in patients receiving ongoing therapy.
A team of doctors, led by Dr. Bader Faiyaz Zuberi at Dow University of Health Sciences, Pakistan, conducted a study and their article will be published on April 14, 2008 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology. In this article they show that in patients with genotype-3 HCV who achieve virus clearance in the first four weeks of therapy, called Rapid Virological Response (RVR) with standard interferon, there is a high probability of achieving the SVR. They also show that patients with initial high levels of ALT were also more likely to attain RVR.
The study will help in selection and prediction of response in patients with Hepatitis C being treated with standard interferon. Pegylated interferon is very expensive and is not within the reach of most patients in developing countries.
Reference: Zuberi BF, Zuberi FF, Memon SA, Qureshi MH, Ali SZ, Afsar S. Sustained virological response based on rapid virological response in genotype-3 chronic hepatitis C treated with standard interferon in Pakistani population. World J Gastroenterol 2008; 14(14): 2218-2221 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/2218.asp
Correspondence to: Dr. Bader Faiyaz Zuberi, Dow University of Health Sciences, Baba-e-Urdu Road, Karachi 74000, Pakistan. bader@zuberi.biz Telephone: +92-300-8234883 Fax: +92-21-5206147
About World Journal of Gastroenterology
World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection. It provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. The WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the title China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.
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World Journal of Gastroenterology