Management and Treatment of Hepatitis C

Abstract

Interferon was first used to treat hepatitis C in the mid-1980’s even before the discovery of the hepatitis C virus (HCV). The initial treatment consisted of administering interferon in a dose of 3 million units (MU) three times a week for a period of 6 months. Because of the poor response rate of only 6%, the treatment duration was extended to 12 months in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s. This led to an increase in the rate of response tol2% to 16%. The next important advance came in the early to mid-1990’s with the addition to interferon treatment of the nucleoside analogue, ribavirin, which further increased the response rate to 34% to 42%. Finally, the introduction in early 2000 of the pegylated interferons led to a markedly improved response rate that began to exceed 50% (Figure)