Ahmed Faisal^1,, Ashraf Anas Zytoon², Abdel-Naser Gad Allah³, Alaa Dawood³

A combination therapy with pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) plus ribavirin (RBV) has made it possible to achieve a sustained virological response (SVR) of 50% in refractory cases with genotype 1b and high levels of plasma HCVRNA. Several factors including virus mutation and host factors such as age, gender, fibrosis of the liver, lipid metabolism, innate immunity, and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs) are reported to be correlated to therapeutic effects. However, it is difficult to determine which factor is the most important predictor for an individual patient. Data mining analysis is useful for combining all these together to predict the therapeutic effects, It is important to analyze blood tests and to predict therapeutic effects prior to initiating treatment. Our aim is to determine the independent contribution of factors including age, gender, viral load, liver fibrosis, hepatitis activity index sore, and the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) score in predicting response to therapy in chronic hepatitis C (CHC). Multivariate analysis of factors predicting rapid (RVR) and sustained (SVR) virological response in 280 consecutive, treatment-naive CHC patients treated with peginterferon alpha and ribavirin in a prospective multicentre study.

predictors of early virological, viral hepatitis C, combination therapy, pegylated interferon