Long-term follow-up and late relapse rate in chronic Hepatitis C patients with sustained virological response

Background: Sustained virological response (SVR) is defined as undetectable HCV RNA on week 24 after the end of antiviral treatment (EOT+24ws) in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients. It is known, that few of SVR patients (0.1 – 10%) have late virological relapse caused by not re-infection. Late confirmation of HCV RNA negative status is not obligatory by Hungarian HCV antiviral protocol. Aim: We investigated the HCV RNA status of CHC subjects, who had negative PCR results on EOT+24ws before 2008. Patients and methods: We analyzed data of 48 CHC patients, who received standard or pegylated interferon and ribavirin…