ABSTRACT
Objective To study the clinical efficacy of pegylated interferon α-2a(PEG-IFN α-2a) and ribavirin combined with self-extracting traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C(CHC) of gan-shen yin-deficiency and damp-heat syndrome.Methods A total of 59 cases of CHC of gan-shen yin-deficiency and damp-heat syndrome confirmed in our hospital was randomly divided into control group(n=29) and combined group(n=30).The patients in both groups were treated with PEG-IFN α-2a injection and ribavirin,and then the self-extracting TCM was added on the patients in combined group.The differences of quantitative score,improvement of liver function,RNA negative rate of HCV,the levels of IL-21,IL-6 and TNF-α,clinical treatment of total efficiency and adverse reactions were compared between the two groups before and after treatment.Results After treatment,the quantitative scores of TCM symptoms(rib-side pain,soreness and weakness of waist and knees,abdominal distension,red tongue with yellowish fur,dizziness with heavy body,insomnia and dreaminess) in combined group were significantly lower than those in control group(P＜0.05),but the difference of quantitative scores of other TCM symptoms between the two groups was not statistically significant(P＞0.05);The levels of alanine aminotransferase(ALT),aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and total bilirubin(TBIL) in combined group were better than those in control group(P＜0.05) after 48 weeks of treatment,but the difference of the levels of albumin(ALB) and glutamyl transpeptidase(GGT) were norstatistically significant in both groups(P＞0.05);The RNA negative rate of HCV in combined group was significantly higher than that in control group after 36-week or 48-week treatment(P＜0.05),but there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups after 12-week or 24-week treatment and 24-week follow-up;The levels of TNF-α,IL-17,IL-23 in combined group were significantly lower than those in control group(P＜0.05) after 48 weeks of treatment;The total efficiency of combined group is better than that of control group (93.33％ vs.72.41％,P＜0.05).There was no significant difference in adverse reactions between the two groups(P＞0.05).Conclusion The application of PEG-IFN α-2a and ribavirin combined with the self-extracting TCM in the treatment of CHC can obviously ameliorate the clinical symptoms and liver function indexes,improve the RNA negative rate of HCV,reduce the levels of inflammatory factors,and improve the clinical efficacy.