Hematological side effects of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin combination therapy in chronic hepatitis C treated patients

Aim: to study the frequency of hematological side effects of pegylated interferon and ribavirin combination therapy in chronic hepatitis c treated patients. study design: descriptive case series. settings: al-khaliq patients care,nishtar road multan. duration of study: two years from july 2011 to july 2013. methods: the patients were explained about the objective of the study and informed written consent was taken. convenient purposive sampling technique was used in this study. the patients were put on pegylated interferon (alpha-2a) 180ug subcutaneously once weekly and ribavirin 400mg twice a day. the patients were followed according to study protocol. at each follow up visit haemoglobin level,tlc,dlc and platelet count were checked. the data were entered in spss-11 and analyzed. results: thirty patients were studied among these,20 were male and 10 were female. the drop of haemoglobin upto 1 g/dl from the base line was noted in 5 (16.6%). a drop up to 2 g/dl from the base line was seen in 4(13.4%). platelet count dropped to 90000/mm3 in 12 (39.99%) of cases. in 2(6.6%) it dropped up to 50000/mm3. total leukocyte count dropped to 3000/ mm3 in 4 (13.33%) of the cases and absolute neutrophilic count remained in the range of 1000/ mm3 to 1500/mm3 in 2 (6.66%) of the cases. in 1 (3.33%) it dropped to 750/mm3. serum uric acid was raised in 13 (43.33%). conclusion: anemia,absolute neutropenia and thrombocytopenia were seen in few cases and these were managed with dose adjustment.