Why the study?
Does interferon therapy improve response rates in Japanese hemophiliacs with chronic hepatitis C?
Does interferon therapy improve response rates in Japanese hemophiliacs with chronic hepatitis C?
Interferon therapy can be effective for hemophiliacs with chronic hepatitis C, but caution is needed for those co-infected with HBV or HIV-1 due to potential non-response and CD4+ lymphocyte reduction.
Interferon response may be lower in co-infected hemophiliacs with HCV; hypothesis-generating and requires larger prospective confirmation.
Eight Japanese hemophiliacs with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) received interferon (IFN) therapy and four of them (50%) responded completely. Non-responders included 3 double-infected patients: 1 with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and 2 with human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1). In one of the patients with HIV-1 double infection, the absolute number of CD4+ lymphocytes decreased during IFN therapy. These findings suggest that hemophiliac patients with CHC can respond well to IFN therapy, but in patients who are double-infected with HBV and HIV-1, the indication of IFN therapy should be considered seriously.
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Miura et al. (1997) studied this question.
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