One-point quantitative determination of pretreatment serum hepatitis C virus RNA predicts long-term responsiveness to high-dose interferon therapy

Abstract We determined quantitative values of serum hepatitis C virus RNA by branched DNA amplification assay in 52 consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C immediately before high-dose treatment with interferon-alpha. Thirty-four out of 52 patients had >10 6.3 (≈2 × 10 6 ) equivalents/ml of viral genomes. Only three (8.8%) out of these 34 were long-term responders, while 16 (88.9%) out of 18 patients with ≤10 6.3 equivalents/ml of viral genomes were long-term responders ( P 6.3 equivalents/ml and 10 (90.9%) out of these 11 had long-term response, while only one (3.2%) out of 31 patients with >10 6.3 equivalents/ml was a long-term responder ( P