RESUMO
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the virological response of managing chronic hepatitis C (CHC) with peg-interferon alpha-2b (PEG-IFN alpha-2b) and ribavirin. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the virological response of 40 patients with different genotypes of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection after anti-HCV management. Patients were given different dosages of PEG-IFN alpha-2b and ribavirin based on their weights. The duration of treatment was 48 weeks for patients infected by HCV genotype 1, and was 24 weeks for the others. HCV RNA was tested before treatment, 12 weeks post management, end of treatment, and 24 weeks after treatment stopped. RESULTS: Data from 40 patients were collected. Among them, 24 cases experienced HCV genotype 1 infection, and 16 cases were infected with other genotypes. Between these two groups, the early virological responses were 75.0% (18/24) and 87.5% (14/16), the end-of-treatment virological responses were 80.0% (16/20) and 85.7% (12/14), and the sustained virological responses were 56.2% (9/16) and 78.5% (11/14), respectively. CONCLUSION: Body weight-based customized PEG-IFN alpha-2b in combination with ribavirin can effectively treat patients with different genotypes of CHC.