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Abstract
Despite recent success after the introduction of combination ierapy with peginterferon alpha 2(a or b) and ribavirin,
iproximately 60% of patients with genotype 4 fail to respond.
esistance to antiviral therapy remains a serious problem in the
anagement of chronic hepatitis C.
Relapse after therapeutic eradication of HCV is also a serious
’oblem as SVR rate for genotype 4 is only 50%. Patients ”cured” after
itiviral treatment with persistent viral response may have occult
:V infection in liver or PBMCs. Thus HCV in PBMCs may be one of
e causes of relapse after antiviral therapy. Perhaps clearance of
:V RNA in PBMCs is a predictor of persistent response to antiviral
erapy and is a reference to formulate the duration of antiviral
erapy in chronic hepatitis C.
Aim of our work was to detect hepatitis C virus RNA in
ripheral blood mononuclear cells in comparison with hepatitis C
us RNA in serum in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus who
rve responded to treatment (Interferon alpha 2a or alpha 2b plus
iavirin] to elucidate if peripheral blood mononuclear cells are
.ated to relapse after clearance of the virus from serum or affect the
stained viral response.
We selected 22 patients (18 males and 4 females) with chronic
~V infection who finished a 48 weeks course of peginterferon alpha
:a or b) plus ribavirin and showed a negative PCR test for HCV RNA
serum. HCV RNA was found in PBMCs of 3 patients (14%) by real
ne PCR.