A study result made public Monday by the Chinese University of
Hong Kong reveals that combination of interferon beta-1a and
ribavirin treatment for chronic hepatitis C creates less side
effects.
Chronic hepatitis C is an important cause of liver cirrhosis and
liver cancer. Currently, the standard treatment of chronic
hepatitis C is combination of peginterferon-alfa and ribavirin,
which, however, leads to common adverse effects including fever and
flu-like symptoms, injection site reaction, depression and bone
marrow suppression. This decreases patients' compliance and in turn
reduces the treatment effect, the university said.
The university hence carried out a three-year study to assess
the use of interferon beta-1a and its combination with ribavirin in
the treatment of Asian chronic hepatitis C patients.
About 250 Asian chronic hepatitis C patients with active disease
were recruited and randomly assigned into two groups which received
placebo treatment and interferon beta-1a plus ribavirin combination
treatment respectively for 12 weeks, it said.
The result shows that interferon beta-1a and ribavirin
combination treatment can achieve a similar rate of viral clearance
but a low rate of adverse event and patient discontinuation as
compared to the existing peginterferon-alfa based treatment.
The university recommended that interferon-beta-1 and ribavirin
combination treatment be considered as an alternative to the
existing peginterferon-alfa based therapy for Asian patients with
chronic hepatitis C infection.
(Xinhua News Agency August 14, 2007)