Efficacy, influencing factors and safety of PEG-INF alpha-2a (PEG-INF-2a) in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C: analysis of 89 patients / 中华实验和临床病毒学杂志

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>To investigate the efficacy, influencing factors and safety of PEG-INF alpha-2a (PEG-INF-2a) in the treatment of hepatitis C.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Totally 89 patients with hepatitis C were included in this study and 46 patients were treated with PEG-INF-2a (180 microg or 135 microg/week) and RBV 900 mg/d, 43 patients were treated with IFNalpha-2a (5 MIU/qod) and RBV 900 mg/d. The time of treatment was 48 weeks, and all the patients were visited 24 weeks after treatment. There were no significant differences between the two groups in pretreatment HCV-RNA, HCV genotype and other clinical data. The main parameters to evaluate the efficacy were virological and biochemical responses. The side effects were intensively observed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Sustained virological response (SVR) rate in PEG-IFNalpha-2a group was significantly higher than that in IFNalpha-2a group (56.5% and 19.5% respectively, P<0.001). As the patients were divided according to HCV genotype 1 and high virus load, the SVR rate of PEG-INF alpha-2a group was higher than IFNalpha-2a group (P<0.001). However, there was no significant difference between two groups in the patients with non-genotype 1 and low viral load (P=0.664, 0.116). Similar side-effects were observed in PEG-IFNalpha-2a group and IFNalpha-2a group, but the rate of weight decline and the degree of leukocyte decrease were more significant in PEG-INF alpha-2a group than in IFNalpha-2a group (P=0.001).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The efficacy of PEG-INF alpha-2a in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C is superior to that of conventional IFNalpha-2a, PEG-INF alpha-2a had good tolerance and safety profiles.</p>

The positive rate of auto antibodies and autoimmune liver diseases in patients with abnormal liver function / 中华肝脏病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the positive rate of auto antibodies and autoimmune liver diseases in patients with abnormal liver function and it's clinical significance.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>511 sera with abnormal ALT (>40 U/L) were continuously collected, all the sera were examined for antibodies and clinical information of 469 cases were studied.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Among the 511 sera, 14.09% of them showed of ANA positive, 0.59% of SMA positive, 2.94% of AMA positive, 0.98% of AMA-M2 positive, 0.59% of SS-A positive, 0.19% of SS-B positive, 0.19% of JO-1 and 0.78% of dsDNA positive and all SLA/LP, LC-1 and LKM-1 and ANA profile were negative. Clinical information was analyzed on 469 cases which have complete data from the 511 patients. Of these 469 cases, 5 cases (1.06%) were found to be PBC, 2 case (0.43%) were AIH, no PSC was found, 77.78% patients among those with positive auto antibodies were diagnosed as viral hepatitis and there were 18.29% patients with viral hepatitis showed different auto antibodies.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The high titer auto antibodies were important criterion for diagnosis of autoimmune liver diseases. The positive rate of autoantibodies of autoimmune liver diseases was similar to hepatitis C and E</p>