Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis C with Consensus Interferon in Relapsers and Non-Responders to Interferon-Based Therapy

Over the last decade, enormous advances have been achieved in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C. However, the success of the established standard therapy with PEG-IFN and ribavirin is limited and needs further therapeutic options especially for the difficult-to-treat patients with genotype 1, patients with liver cirrhosis, patients with relapse or breakthrough and non-responders after a PEG-IFN/ribavirin combination therapy. In those cases, a daily treatment with CIFN/ribavirin could be a promising concept, before considering non-curable concepts as the long-term IFN maintenance therapy, especially in cases with advanced liver fibrosis. Daily treatments need high motivated and compliant patients. Concepts to optimize current therapies as the use of CIFN or the high dose PEG-IFN therapy are necessary until new kinds of therapy are available.