الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Hepatitis C virus is a major public health problem leading to death worldwide; about 200 million people are infected. Egypt has the highest prevalence of HCV infection in the world approximately 14.5 % (about 11 millions) anti-HCV positive individuals and may reach to 20% in certain areas infected mainly with genotype 4a. Only 20% - 30% of HCV-infected individuals can recover the acute infection spontaneously during the first six months, while the remaining proportion develops chronic infection with risk to develop hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and about 5% - 20 % may develop hepatocellular carcinoma leading to death at the end. Combination therapy of pegylated interferon and ribavirin has been recommended and approved for treatment of patients with chronic HCV infection. The high cost of treatment, its side effects and also the low response rates to treatment are limitations related to this type of treatment. Thus, it is highly desirable to identify baseline factors that could predict the treatment outcome. Various predictors of response (whether viral factors as genotype and viral load or host factors as histological, immunological and genetic factors) to IFN plus ribavirin - based treatment can be used to determine the outcome of therapy. |