Successful antiviral therapy is associated with a decrease of serum prohepcidin in chronic hepatitis C

Table 1 Baseline characteristics of studied population (mean ± SE)

	Control group (n = 15)	Genotype 1		Genotype 3a
		R (n = 13)	NR (n = 16)	R (n = 21)	NR (n = 3)
Age [median (min-max), yr]	40 (26-54)	47 (21-67)	48 (23–58)	47 (25-64)a	24 (20-26)
Sex (M/F)	7/8	11/2	13/3	12/9	2/1
HCV-RNA log10 (cps/mL)	-	6.01 ± 5.74	5.86 ± 5.73	3.95 ± 3.65	2.95 ± 2.30
ALT (U/L)	-	110.4 ± 29.3	75.1 ± 8.7	111.5 ± 23.6	133.0 ± 25.2
Bilirubin (mg/dL)	-	1.1 ± 0.1	1.2 ± 0.1	1.0 ± 0.1	1.1 ± 0.1
Liver inflammatory activity [median (min-max), pts]	-	3 (1-3)	2 (1-4)	2 (1-3)	2.5 (2-3)
Liver fibrosis [median (min-max), pts]	-	1 (1-3)	1 (1-3)	1 (1-2)	1.5 (1-2)
Fe (μg/dL)	-	138.9 ± 18.3	162.2 ± 19.9	127.3 ± 10.9	165.0 ± 29.0
TIBC (μg/dL)	-	352.3 ± 20.7	316.5 ± 21.1	345.5 ± 13.5	361.3 ± 25.2
Transferrin saturation (%)	-	42.5 ± 6.9	39.1 ± 5.9	38.0 ± 4.1	43.7 ± 10.1
Ferritin (ng/mL)	-	255.4 ± 50.2	204.5 ± 35.1	193.4 ± 58.1	134.8 ± 61.8
Hemoglobin (g/dL)	-	15.0 ± 0.32	14.5 ± 0.4	14.6 ± 0.3	15.4 ± 0.9
Prohepcidin (ng/mL)	84.1 ± 7.8	88.8 ± 14.7	88.3 ± 11.4	99.5 ± 5.2	94.1 ± 7.9

^aP < 0.05 in comparison to non-responders, all of the other differences are non-significant. R: Responders; NR: Non-responders; HCV: Hepatitis C virus; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; TIBC: Total iron binding capacity.