Antiviral therapy in hepatitis C virus cirrhotic patients in compensated and decompensated condition

Table 1 Summary features of trials of antiviral therapy in HCV-infected cirrhotics with signs of hepatic decompensation

Author	Yr	No. of patients	Type of IFN	Dosage	RBV	Dosage per day	Length oftherapy	Geno-type 1 (%)	CPT score	MELD score	Decom-pensated (%)	Overall SVR n (%)	Genotypes 1 and 4 SVR n (%)	Genotypes 2 and 3 SVR n (%)
Crippin et al[36]	2002	15	IFN α2b	(1) 1 MU (2) 3 MU 3 times/wk	(1) Yes/No	800 mg	Mean time: 1.95 mo (range 0.25 to 5 mo)	73	11.9 ± 1.2	No data	100	0	0	0
Thomas et al[35]	2003	20	IFN α2b	5 MU/d	No		Until the day of transplantation (14 ± 2.5 mo)	67	10 ± 0.5	13.0 ± 2.5	100	4 (20)	2 (10)	2 (100)
Forns et al[34]	2003	30	IFN α2b	3 MU/d	Yes	800 mg	12 wk	83	1	No data	43	6 (20)	3 (12)	3 (60)
Everson et al[32]	2003	124	IFN α2b	Increasing doses until standard dose	Yes	Increasing doses until standard dose	6 mo for genotype 2 and 3 and 12 mo for genotypes 1 and 4	70	7.4 ± 2.3	11.0 ± 3.7	63	30 (24)	11 (13)	19 (50)
Iacobellis et al[33]	2007	66	PEG-IFN α2b	1 μg/kg per wk	Yes	800 or 1000 mg	6 mo	65.2	8 ± 1.2	14.2 ± 2.7	100	13 (19.7)	3 (7)	10 (43.5)

¹Child A 15 (50%), B 13 (43%), C 2 (7%).

Table 2 Suggested guidelines for the use of interferon-based therapy in patients with cirrhosis (International liver transplantation society expert panel, 2003)

Consider treatment	CTP score	MELD score
Strongly consider	≤ 7	≤ 18
Possibly consider	8-11	18-25
No, avoid treatment	> 11	> 25