Efficacy and side-effect profile of pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) plus ribavirin (RBV) therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Preliminary results

Introduction: Long-term treatment with PEG-IFNs combined with RBV is currently regarded as the best antiviral treatment for chronic hepatitis C (CHC). Aim: To survey our experience with this novel treatment modality. Patients and methods: Since January 2004, the 48-week treatment of 83 CHC pts has been started with once-weekly injections of PEG-IFN combined with 1.0–1.2g RBV daily. Seventy-one had not participated in previous IFN treatment, 2 were relapsers to IFN monotherapy, 1 was a relapser to PEG-IFN monotherapy, and 9 had relapsed following previous standard IFN + RBV therapy. To date 67 pts have reached th…