Hepatitis C in hemodialysis patients

Table 3 Meta-analyses of trials with convetional and pegylated interferon-α in hepatitis C virus infected hemodialysis patients

Conventional IFN/Peg IFNtherapy	Ref.	No. of patients	Dose	Duration	SVR (%)	Withdrawal rate (%)
Two metaanalysis studies (IFN-α)	Fabrizi et al[73]	269	1.5-6.0 MU/d to 3 times per week	24-48 wk	37	17
IFN-α	Russo et al[74]	213	3.0-5.0 MU/d to 3 times per week	24-48 wk	33	30
Two head-to-head comparisons (IFN-αvs PegIFN-α)	Fabrizi et al[75]	645	1.0-6.0 MU/d to 3 times per week (n = 529)	8-48 wk	39	19
			135-180 μg/wk (a-2a) or 0.5-1.0 μg/kg per week (a-2b) (n = 116)	48 wk	31	27
IFN-αvs PegIFNα + ribavirin	Gordon et al[76]	546	1.0-6.0 MU/d to 3 times per week (n = 459)	16-48 wk	41	26
			135-180 μg/wk (a-2a) or 0.5-1.0 μg/kg per week (a-2b) (n = 87)	24-48 wk	37	28
PegIFN-α	Fabrizi et al[77]	254	135-180 μg/wk (a-2a) or 0.5-1.1 μg/kg per week (a-2b)	24-48 wk	33	23

HD: Hemodialysis; HCV: Hepatitis C virus; IFN-α: Interferon-α; PegIFN-α: Pegylated interferon-α; RBV: Ribavirin.