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Background/Aims: We aimed to evaluate the effi cacy and safety of peginterferon plus ribavirin for chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients under real life setting in Korea. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the medical records of 758 CHC patients treated with peginterferon plus ribavirin between 2000 and 2008 from 14 university hospitals in the Gyeonggi-Incheon area in Korea. Results: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1 was detected in 61.2% of patients, while genotype 2was detected in 35.5%. Baseline HCV RNA level was ≥6×105IU/mL in 51.6% of patients. The sustained virological response (SVR) rate was 59.6% regardless of genotype; 53.6%in genotype 1 and 71.4% in genotype 2/3. On multivariate analysis, male gender (p=0.011), early virological response (p<0.001), genotype 2/3 (p<0.001), HCV RNA <6×105 IU/mL (p=0.005) and adherence to the drug >80% of the planned dose (p<0.001) were associated with SVR. The rate of premature discontinuation was 35.7%. The main reason for withdrawal was intolerance to the drug due to common adverse events or cytopenia (48.2%). Conclusions: Our data suggest that the effi cacy of peginterferon and ribavirin therapy in Koreans is better in Koreans than in Caucasians for the treatment of CHC, corroborating previous studies that have shown the superior therapeutic effi cacy of this regimen Correspondence to: Choong Kee Park Department of Internal Medicine, Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, 896 Pyeongchon-dong, Dongan-gu, Anyang 431-070, Korea Tel: +82-31-380-3710, Fax: +82-31-386-2269, E-mail: cpk@hallym.or.kr Received on September 16, 2011. Accepted on Octorber 28, 2011. pISSN 1976-2283 eISSN 2005-1212 http://dx.doi.org/10.5009/gnl.2012.6.1.98This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0)which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. in Asians.
