Source: DGNews  |  Posted 4 years ago

By Maria Bishop

BOSTON, MA -- November 7, 2007 -- There is no difference in sustained viral response (SVR) rates between patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) who were treated with pegylated interferon alfa-2b versus pegylated interferon alfa-2a, when used in combination with weight-based ribavirin, researchers reported here at the 58th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD).

Ihab Hammoud, MD, Gastroenterology Fellow, Henry Ford Health System (HFHS), Detroit, Michigan, United States, led a team of colleagues from the HFHS in a retrospective, single-centre, head-to-head evaluation of the two treatments in 259 patients with HCV.

The authors examined data from all treatment-naïve patients with HCV who had been treated with a pegylated interferon and weight-based ribavirin at their tertiary medical centre from 2001 through 2005.

Overall, 212 subjects had been treated with a weight-based dose of pegylated interferon alfa-2b plus weight-based ribavirin. The other 47 patients had been treated with a standard dose of pegylated interferon alfa-2a plus weight-based ribavirin.

Baseline demographics were similar between the two groups, with nearly 40% of each cohort comprised of African-Americans, 74% in each cohort being genotype 1 and nearly 60% in each cohort having a high viral load (HCV > 800,000).

SVR was 38% for the peginterferon alfa-2b group, and 40% in the peginterferon alfa-2a group. Rates were naturally lower in the genotype 1 patients (23% vs 26%, respectively), and even more so in genotype 1 patients with a high viral load (20% vs 30%, respectively).

Dr. Hammoud's team noted that dose reductions were similar between the two groups (8% in the peginterferon alfa-2b group and 2% in the alfa-2a group).

There were no significant differences in outcomes or in safety parameters among patients.

This study was neither randomised nor controlled, cohort sizes were not matched, and none of the study data reached significance. A larger, prospective trial -- the Individualized Dosing Efficacy versus flat dosing to Assess optimaL pegylated interferon therapy (IDEAL) trial -- is currently ongoing to further explore the efficacy in these two treatment regimes, Dr. Hammoud's team noted.

[Presentation title: Pegintereferon Alpha-2b Versus Peginterferon Alpha-2a in the Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C Infection. Abstract 329]