Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals
Open Access
ISSN: 1948-5964
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 1948-5964
+44 1300 500008
Asraf Hussain Hashmi, Atika Mansoor and Abdul Raouf Shakoori
Punjab University, Pakistan
Institute of Biomedical & Genetic Engineering, Pakistan
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Antivir Antiretrovir
Interferon (IFN) therapy has been a treatment regimen for HCV with significant side effects and poor efficacy especially against genotype 1 and 4. Therefore, treatment prediction remains a matter of great concern for patients and physicians. Initially, treatment failure was attributed to epidemiological, viral and host factors such as HCV genotype, viral load, interferon sensitivity determining region (ISDR), body mass index, ethnicity, gender, various single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and stage of liver disease. However, HCV genotype, pretreatment viral load and IL28B rs12979860 SNP remained three major pretreatment predictors of therapy. IL28B rs12979860 SNP located in the upstream region of interleukin-28B (IL28B) has shown association with interferon (IFN) treatment response especially in hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1-infected patients and widely used as pretreatment prediction test. Pakistan, being the country with second highest prevalence of HCV with predominantly 3a genotype infection, bears a significant disease burden. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of rs12979860 genotypes on treatment response in HCV-3a-infected patients. This study shows that the CC genotype is providing protection against infection to HCV. But once infected, the CC genotype patients show viral persistence following IFN therapy. The TT genotype is assisting the 3a patients in viral clearance after IFN treatment. Moreover, recently introduced direct acting agent, Sofosbuvir (HCV RNA polymerase inhibitor) with Ribavirin is providing high cure rates irrespective of rs12979860 polymorphism in genotype 3 patients.
Email: asraf.mmg@hotmail.com