European vs. Egyptian HCV-4 Patients with Elevated Baseline HCV-RNA, Treated with PEG-IFN-?2a and Ribavirin: the Role of Rapid and Early Virologic Response

Background and aims: despite the recent spread of hepatitis c virus genotype 4 (hcv-4) into european countries, very little is known about the influence of ethnicity on treatment outcomes in patients with hcv-4. the aim of this study was to compare the virologic response (vr) rates of: rapid virologic response (rvr), early virologic response (evr), vr at 24 weeks of treatment, at end of treatment (eot), and sustained virologic response (svr) of european and egyptian hcv-4 patients.methods: sixty (30 europeans – group a; and 30 egyptians – group b) chronic hcv-4 subtype a adult patients with elevated baseline viral load (>800 000 iu/m l) were treated for a fixed period of 48 weeks with pegylated interferon α2a (peg-ifn- α2a) and ribavirin. during the study, hcv-rna levels were measured at weeks 4,12,24,48 and 72.results: baseline characteristics, including liver histology, were similar in the two groups. rvr, evr and hcv-rna at week 24 in groups a and b were (rvr 26.7% vs. 30.0%) (evr 23.3% vs. 16.7%) (in week 24 13.3% vs. 16.7%). overall svr rates were 36.7% (11/30) for group a and 26.7% (8/30) for group b (p = 0.59). for group b, rvr was the weakest indicator for svr as compared with rvr of group a, where rvr was the best svr indicator conclusions: the overall response to treatment was similar, but ethnic origin or previous history and treatment of schistosomiasis may influence intermediate response rates of chronic hcv-4a infected patients with elevated baseline hcv-rna.