Page 253 - fourth year book

HEPATITIS C VIRUS

─ What is ribavirin?

Ribavirin is a medicine that can fight certain viruses, though by itself
it does not work against hepatitis C. It is taken in pill form and in
combination with the interferon treatment.

─ How effective is treatment?

Patient’s response to treatment depends on several factors, such as
what type of hepatitis C virus (called genotype) patient have, age,
race, weight, extent of liver damage, and amount of virus in the blood
(viral load).

 HCV RNA should be tested by a highly sensitive quantitative assay
for monitoring purpose during therapy. It is important to use the
same laboratory test before and during therapy.

Used at the initiation of or shortly before treatment and at week 12 of
therapy.

 Treatment Regimen:

Genotypes 1 and 4 HCV Infection; combination treatment with
peginterferon plus weight based ribavirin should be administered for 48
weeks appears to be the optimal regimen;

the dose for peginterferon alfa-2a is 180 µg subcutaneously per week
together with ribavirin using doses of 1,000 mg for those <75 kg in
weight and 1,200 mg for those >75 kg;

the dose for peginterferon alfa-2b is 1.5 µg/kg subcutaneously per week

together with ribavirin using doses of 088mg for those weighing <65 kg;

1,000 mg for those weighing >65 kg to 85 kg, 1,200 mg for >85 kg to 581
kg, and 1,400 mg for >105 kg.

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