News Stories

Triphasic decline of hepatitis C virus RNA during antiviral therapy.

"When patients chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) are placed on antiviral therapy with pegylated interferon (IFN)- or IFN- plus ribavirin (RBV), HCV RNA generally declines in a biphasic manner. However, a triphasic decline has been reported in a subset of patients. A triphasic decline consists of a first phase (1-2 days) with rapid virus load decline, followed by a shoulder phase (4-28 days) in which virus load decays slowly or remains constant, and a third phase of renewed viral decay....Conclusion: Triphasic responses can be predicted from a generalization of existent viral kinetic models through the inclusion of homeostatic proliferation of hepatocytes. This generalized model can also explain the viral kinetics seen in flat partial responders. Finally, the enhanced third phase in patients treated with IFN- in combination with RBV versus patients treated with IFN- alone can be explained by a mutagenic effect of RBV against HCV."

http://tinyurl.com/2nznqu


Overestimation and underestimation of hepatitis C virus RNA levels in a widely used real-time polymerase chain reaction-based method.

http://tinyurl.com/3c23rb


Hepatitis C virus protein expression causes calcium-mediated mitochondrial bioenergetic dysfunction and nitro-oxidative stress.

http://tinyurl.com/2em3rm


Identification of host genes involved in hepatitis C virus replication by small interfering RNA technology.

http://tinyurl.com/yo8j33


Cognitive function does not worsen during pegylated interferon and ribavirin retreatment of chronic hepatitis C.

http://tinyurl.com/2g9mkl


Neuropsychological function in Greek patients with chronic hepatitis C.

http://tinyurl.com/yrvp5y


Profound suppression of chronic hepatitis C following superinfection with hepatitis B virus.

http://tinyurl.com/yonypg


Emergence of occult minority genotype 2b hepatitis C infection in an HIV-1-co-infected patient treated for genotype 5a HCV infection with 48 weeks of pegylated-interferon-alpha 2b and ribavirin.

http://tinyurl.com/24tcwb


TnHepGuy

[jmjm530]

Thanks for posting the articles.

I've read the "Hep B/Profound Supression" article before and found it fascinating. Hopefully, somewhere in those dynamics is a cure waiting to be found, perhaps with some sort of "neutered" Hep B as with vaccines? Hope there's money left over from all the new drug development to stimulate more research in possible alternate approaches like this.

Re: PCR testing variability...

M. Friedman over at the Clinical Care Options site, has a slide presentation that discusses up to a one-log variance (up or down) in commonly used viral load tests. Perhaps this is one reason why anything less than a two-log drop isn't considered significant. Indeed, a good part of anything less than a two-log drop could be due to testing variances.

-- Jim

[Upbeat]

Interesting.  However its way over my head,  I wish they could explain this stuff in laymans language.

                                                                                                                                          Ron

[Forseegood]

thanks for this, will read this when I'm less tired...hope you are doing well...

[frijole]

Wow - sneaking in the door at "Hepatology"   Now I just wish I could understand the articles....
frijole