Long-Term Effects of Antiviral Therapy in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C

Table 1

Durability of undetectable serum HCV RNA after SVR.

Author, year of publication (reference)	Patients no.	Followup period years	Detectable HCV RNA no. (%)
Marcellin et al. [9]	80	4 (mean)	3 (4)
Reichard et al. [10]	26	5.4 (mean)	2 (8)
McHutchison et al. [11]	395; 151	5 (mean)	10 (2.5%); 2 (1.3)^1
Veldt et al. [12]	286	Up to 4.9	12 (4)
Formann et al. [13]	187	2.4 (median)	0 (0)
Desmond et al. [14]	147	2.3 (mean)	1 (0.7)
Lindsay et al. [15]	366	4.8 (mean)	4 (1)
Maylin et al. [16]	344	3.3 (mean)	0 (0)
George et al. [17]	147	5.4 (median)	0 (0); 9 (6)^2
Kim et al. [18]	73	Not reported	8 (11); 1 (1.4)^3

Patients in the above studies who were followed after an SVR are heterogeneous and include those with all genotypes and various treatment regimens, including interferon monotherapy, interferon plus ribavirin and peginterferon plus ribavirin, and various treatment durations for 24 or 48 weeks; patients were generally naïve to prior therapy, but relapsers were included in some studies.
1395 patients with an SVR and participating in 4 studies were followed, including naïve and relapsed patients, and patients were treated with interferon monotherapy or interferon plus ribavirin for 24 or 48 weeks; of these 395 patients, a subset of 151 patients were naïve and received interferon plus ribavirin for 48 weeks.
2No patient had detectable HCV RNA using PCR (sensitivity = 29 IU/mL); 9 patients had HCV RNA detectable by TMA (sensitivity = 5.3 IU/mL) on one sample (mean of 4 samples from the 9 patients), but all other samples of these 9 patients were negative by TMA.
3HCV RNA was detectable by qualitative PCR in 8 patients, but only one patient had persistent viremia.