This observation may suggest that lamuvidine may also contribute to exposure www.selleckchem.com/products/VX-770.html of RR-related immunogenic epitopes and that liver inflammation per se may also exert adjuvant effects toward the occurrence of this particular antibody response. Conclusions In conclusion, the present study independently confirmed the strict association of the IIF-HEp-2 RR pattern with HCV and extended this association to HCV/HIV co-infection. In addition we were able to narrow down the trigger for anti-RR reactivity to the combined interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy. In contrast, no association was detected with demographic parameters, duration of diagnosis, response to treatment, HCV genotype, or HCV viral load.
Despite the clear association of anti-RR reactivity and combined interferon-�� plus ribavirin therapy, it is striking that the majority (62%) of patients under this therapy showed no anti-RR reactivity. This observation indicates that other factors must play a role in determining the occurrence of this peculiar antibody response. Future studies should address potential candidate factors, such as the MHC genotype, the severity and extent of liver inflammatory reaction, and genetic polymorphism related to enzymes involved in the processing of ribavirin or to enzymes targeted by ribavirin. Funding Statement This study was supported by grant #2010/50710-6 from Sao Paulo State Research Foundation FAPESP. Lu��s Andrade receives research grant #305064/2011-8 from Brazilian National Council for Research and Technological Development.
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Pilot, open-label, single arm clinical trial which involved 58 Caucasian HCV/HIV-coinfected patients who received weekly 135 ��g peginterferon-�� 2a plus ribavirin 400 mg twice daily during 20 weeks after attaining undetectable viremia. The relationships between baseline patient-related variables, including IL28B genotype, plasma HCV-RNA, ribavirin dose/kg, peginterferon-�� 2a and ribavirin levels with virological responses were analyzed. Only 4 patients showed lack of response and 5 patients dropped out due to adverse events related to the study medication. Overall, sustained virologic response (SVR) rates were 58.3% by intention-to-treat and 71.4% by per protocol analysis, respectively. Among patients with AV-951 rapid virologic response (RVR), SVR and relapses rates were 92.6% and 7.4%, respectively. No relationships were observed between viral responses and ribavirin dose/kg, peginterferon-�� 2a concentrations, ribavirin levels or rs129679860 genotype. Conclusions Weekly 135 ��g pegIFN-�� 2a could be as effective as the standard 180 ��g dose, with a very low incidence of severe adverse events.