Acute Vanishing Bile Duct Syndrome after Interferon Therapy for Recurrent HCV Infection in Liver-Transplant Recipients

To the Editor: Interferon alfa therapy has been recently proposed1 to treat patients with recurrent hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection following liver transplantation2,3. We report on two patients in whom we believe that interferon alfa therapy (interferon alfa-2b, Schering-Plough) may have triggered acute vanishing bile duct syndrome. Among 28 patients who received liver transplants for cirrhosis due to HCV between 1987 and 1992, serologic (enzyme-linked immunosorbent and recombinant immunoblotting assays), viral (polymerase chain reaction), and histologic evidence of recurrent HCV infection was demonstrated in 21. Interferon alfa therapy (3 million units three times weekly) was instituted in five . . .