Predictors of Pegylated Interferon Alpha and Ribavirin Efficacy and Long-Term Assessment of Relapse in Patients With Chronic Hepatitis C: A One-Center Experience From China

Background: sustained virological response (svr) and virological relapse maintain pivotal roles in the management of chronic hepatitis c (chc); however, there is little data regarding the long-term outcomes of patients with chc in china. objectives: we aimed to investigate the predictive factors of therapeutic effect and viral relapse in patients who achieved end-of-treatment response (etr). patients and methods: we retrospectively analyzed clinical, biochemical and virological data of 169 adult patients with chc from china who were not treated with pegylated interferon-alpha (peg ifn-α) and ribavirin, of which 142 achieved etr and with a follow-up period ranging from six months to six years. statistical analysis was performed by spss 20.0. results: of the 169 patients, 124 (73.4%) achieved svr and 23 (16.2%) experienced relapses post-therapy in cases of etr patients. we considered sex, age, alanine aminotransferase, aspartate transaminase, baseline hepatitis c virus rna level, hcv genotypes, il28b rs12979860 genotype, rapid virological response (rvr), and early virological response (evr). for antiviral effect in patients with chc, hcv genotypes (2, 3) (χ^2 = 11.285, p = 0.001), il28b genotype (rs12979860 cc) (χ^2 = 16.552, p < 0.001), rvr (χ^2 = 37.339, p < 0.001), and evr (χ^2 = 70.265, p < 0.001) were significantly correlated with achieving svr. for etr patients with long-term follow-up, the relapse rate within six months was significantly higher than within other periods during six-year follow-up (χ^2 = 7.792, p = 0.005). relapse was virtually not observed after therapy ceased for 48 weeks. the il28b genotype (rs12979860 ct/tt) (or = 0.102; 95% ci, 0.031-0.339; p < 0.001), lower rvr (or = 0.239; 95% ci, 0.078-0.738; p = 0.013), and evr (or = 0.102; 95% ci, 0.016-0.661; p = 0.017) were independent risk factors for relapse. conclusions: our study comprehensively explored the predictive factors of therapeutic effect of administered drugs and analyzed viral relapse during a six-months to six-year follow-up period from china. the svr may not be the perfect endpoint of hcv therapy in chinese people; we recommend 48 weeks after treatment withdrawal as the suitable time point.