Anemia as a predictor of response to antiviral therapy in chronic hepatitis C.
2013
Background: The standard therapy for chronic HCV infection is
the administration of pegylated interferons in combination with
ribavirin. Anemia is a dose-dependent side-effect of ribavirin
administration. The degree of anemia could be indicative of the
individual exposure to ribavirin. Aims: 1) To evaluate the
correlation of HGB level decreases at specified time-points
with a sustained virological response during the antiviral
treatment. 2) To compare these parameters with the virological
predictors for responses. Methods: A retrospective analysis of
cohort, which comprised 164 patients treated with standard
therapy at a tertiary center in Prague, Czech Republic.
Results: We identified several predictive factors for a
sustained virological response in females: baseline HGB level
40 g
(p=0.039), and a HGB drop in week 4 >30 g (p=0.044). There was
only one predictor identified for males: reaching the lowest
HGB level after week 19 (p=0.021). The strongest positive
predictor of response was a rapid virological response. A low
viral load (<600 000 IU/ml) at baseline was not associated with
a sustained response in either gender. Conclusions: The
parameters of HGB decrease during antiviral treatment are
better correlated with a sustained response in females. None of
these response predicting parameters was as significant as that
of rapid virological response as that of rapid virological
response (Tab. 4, Fig. 1, Ref. 15).
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