Interferon with ribavirin is safe and effective for children with chronic H...( --interferon with 15 mg/kg/day of ribav...),Health

--interferon with 15 mg/kg/day of ribavirin. They were evaluated regularly throughout treatment and follow-up to determine viral response and assess and manage side effects. At the end of the study, 46 percent had achieved sustained viral response. Children with HCV genotype 2/3 had higher sustained virologic response rates than those with HCV genotype 1.

All subjects experienced some side effects, but most were mild, the most common being flu-like symptoms. Severe side effects included anemia, neutropenia, depression and suicidal thoughts, and one child in the study attempted suicide. The researchers responded to adverse side effects by dose modification, and 8 subjects completely discontinued treatment because of adverse events.

As in previous studies, children in this one exhibited growth inhibition while receiving the therapy, however, they typically experienced height and weight catch-up gains after it ended. Interestingly, none of the African-American children in the study had a sustained virologic response to combination therapy. "The number of African-American children studied was too small to draw firm conclusions," say the authors. But this observation matches previous reports that African-American adults have lower response rates to combination therapy.

Overall, "our studies demonstrate that interferon alfa 2b in combination with oral ribavirin is effective and reasonably safe for the treatment of childhood chronic hepatitis C," the authors conclude. Importantly, "sustained virologic response rates in children with chronic HCV given interferon alfa-2b with ribavirin in these studies are higher than in those using interferon alone."

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Contact: David Greenberg
dgreenbe@wiley.com
201-748-6484
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1-Nov-2005

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