Hlaing NKT, Banerjee D, Mitrani R, Arker SH, Win KS, Tun NL, Thant Z, Win KM, Reddy KR. Hepatitis C virus therapy with peg-interferon and ribavirin in Myanmar: A resource-constrained country. World J Gastroenterol 2016; 22(43): 9613-9622 [PMID: 27920482 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i43.9613]
Corresponding Author of This Article
K Rajender Reddy, MD, Ruimy Family President’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Professor of Medicine in Surgery, Director of Hepatology, Director of the Viral Hepatitis Center, and Medical Director of Liver Transplantation, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, University of Pennsylvania, 2 Dulles, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States. rajender.reddy@uphs.upenn.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 21, 2016; 22(43): 9613-9622 Published online Nov 21, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i43.9613
Table 1 Sustained virologic response according to patient characteristics at baseline (n = 288) n (%)
Achieved SVR
P value
Yes (n = 237)
No (n = 51)
Demographics
Sex
Male
101 (87.1)
15 (12.9)
0.081
Female
136 (79.1)
36 (20.9)
Age
Mean ± SD
45.9 ± 10.4
50.1 ± 8.5
0.007
Median (range)
48.00 (11.0-68.0)
49.00 (34.0-66.0)
0.016
≤ 20
5 (100)
0 (0)
0.017
21-40
57 (87.7)
8 (12.3)
41-60
164 (82.4)
35 (17.6)
> 60
11 (57.9)
8 (42.1)
Pretreatment conditions/comorbidities
HCV/HIV coinfection
4 (100)
0 (0)
0.350
Diabetes mellitus
21 (91.3)
2 (8.7)
0.238
Previous alcohol consumption
45 (81.8)
10 (18.2)
0.919
High pretreatment ALT (> 40)
166 (81.8)
37 (18.2)
0.722
High pretreatment Hgb (≥ 12 g/dL)
182 (81.3)
42 (18.8)
0.386
High pretreatment WBC (≥ 4000 mm3)
225 (82.7)
47 (17.3)
0.432
High pretreatment platelet (≥ 150000/mm3)
189 (84.8)
34 (15.2)
0.043
High pretreatment albumin (≥ 3.5 g/dL)
212 (84.5)
39 (15.5)
0.012
High pretreatment HCV RNA (≥ 800000 IU/mL)
144 (79.1)
38 (20.9)
0.065
Liver stiffness
F ≤ 2
133 (92.4)
11 (7.6)
< 0.001
F3-4
104 (72.2)
40 (27.8)
IL-28B polymorphism
rs8099917TT
204 (82.3)
44 (17.7)
0.634
rs8099917Non-TT
18 (78.3)
5 (21.7)
Unknown
15 (88.2)
2 (11.8)
rs12979860CC
196 (82.4)
42 (17.6)
0.618
Table 2 Sustained virologic response by treatment modifications and hepatitis C virus genotype (n = 288) n (%)
Achieved SVR
P value
Yes(n = 237)
No(n = 51)
Dose reduction
Any dose reduction
43 (79.6)
11 (20.4)
0.570
Peg-IFN only
9 (100)
0 (0)
0.157
Ribavirin only
12 (70.6)
5 (29.4)
0.193
Both peg-IFN and ribavirin
22 (78.6)
6 (21.4)
0.587
Genotype
1
42 (75.0)
14 (25.0)
0.314
2
4 (100)
0 (0)
3
123 (84.8)
22 (15.2)
6
68 (81.9)
15 (18.1)
Table 3 Sustained virologic response according to fibrosis score and genotype (n = 288) n (%)
Total patients
F ≤2 (n = 144)
F 3-4 (n = 144)
P value
SVR+
SVR-
SVR+
SVR-
All genotypes
288
133 (46)
11 (4)
104 (36)
40 (14)
0.034
Genotype 1
56
26 (46)
3 (5)
16 (29)
11 (20)
0.009
Genotype 2
4
0 (0)
0 (0)
4 (100)
0 (0)
Genotype 3
145
60 (41)
4 (3)
63 (43)
18 (12)
0.008
Genotype 6
83
47 (57)
4 (5)
21 (25)
11 (13)
0.002
Table 4 Relapse according to patient characteristics at baseline (n = 283) n (%)
Relapse (n = 49)
No relapse (n = 234)
P value
Relapse
49 (17.3)
234 (82.7)
Demographics
Sex
Male
14 (12.4)
99 (87.6)
0.074
Female
35 (20.6)
135 (79.4)
Age
mean ± SD
50.4 ± 8.5
46.0 ± 10.2
0.006
Median (range)
50.00 (34.0-66.0)
48.00 (11.0-68.0)
0.011
≤ 20
0 (0)
4 (100)
0.013
21-40
7 (10.9)
57 (89.1)
41-60
34 (17.3)
162 (82.7)
> 60
8 (42.1)
11 (57.9)
Pre-treatment/comorbidities
HCV/HIV coinfection
0 (0)
3 (100)
0.426
Diabetes mellitus
2 (8.7)
21 (91.3)
0.254
Previous alcohol consumption
9 (17.0)
44 (83.0)
0.943
High pretreatment ALT (> 40)
36 (17.9)
165 (82.1)
0.678
High pretreatment Hgb (≥ 12g/dL)
40 (18.3)
179 (81.7)
0.434
High pretreatment WBC (≥ 4000 mm3)
45 (16.9)
222 (83.1)
0.403
High pretreatment platelet (≥ 150000/mm3)
32 (14.7)
186 (85.3)
0.032
High pretreatment albumin (≥ 3.5 g/dL)
37 (15.0)
209 (85.0)
0.009
High pretreatment HCV RNA (≥ 800000 IU/mL)
36 (20.3)
141 (79.7)
0.082
Liver stiffness
F ≤ 2
9 (6.5)
130 (93.5)
< 0.001
F3-4
40 (27.8)
104 (72.2)
IL28B polymorphism
rs8099917TT
42 (17.3)
201 (82.7)
0.592
rs8099917Non-TT
5 (21.7)
18 (78.3)
Unknown
2 (11.8)
15 (88.2)
0.918
rs12979860CC
40 (17.2)
193 (82.8)
0.569
Table 5 Relapse by treatment modifications and hepatitis C virus genotype (n = 283) n (%)
Relapse Yes
Relapse No
P value
(n = 49)
(n = 234)
Dose reduction
Any dose reduction
10 (19.2)
42 (80.8)
0.686
Peg-IFN only
0 (0)
9 (100)
0.163
Ribavirin only
4 (26.7)
11 (73.3)
0.325
Both peg-IFN and ribavirin
6 (21.4)
22 (78.6)
0.544
Genotype
1
14 (25.0)
42 (75.0)
0.279
2
0 (0)
4 (100)
3
21 (14.7)
122 (85.3)
6
14 (17.5)
66 (82.5)
Table 6 Preliminary analysis of sustained virologic response outcome by treatment duration and prognostic baseline factors in patients with genotype 3 hepatitis C virus infection
Comparison or stratum
OR (95%CI)
P value
Age
1.02 (0.97-1.08)
0.432
Liver fibrosis (F3-4 vs F ≤ 2)
0.18 (0.05-0.67)
0.010
Sex (female vs male)
0.41 (0.14-1.16)
0.093
Treatment duration (48 wk vs 24 wk)
2.05 (0.42-9.92)
0.371
Table 7 Sustained virologic response outcome by prognostic baseline factors in patients with genotypes 1, 3, and 6 hepatitis C virus infection
Table 8 Adverse events and treatment modifications (n = 288) n (%)
48 wk treatment (n = 162)
24 wk treatment (n = 126)
Dose reduction
Any dose reduction
34 (21.0)
20 (15.9)
Peg-IFN only
3 (1.9)
6 (4.8)
Ribavirin only
13 (8.0)
4 (3.2)
Both peg-IFN and ribavirin
18 (11.1)
10 (7.9)
Hematological adverse events
Hemoglobin reduction = 1.5 g/dL from pretreatment value
121 (74.7)
85 (67.5)
Erythropoietin use
99 (61.1)
62 (49.2)
Severe anemia (Hgb < 7 g/dL)
4 (2.5)
3 (2.4)
WBC < 4000 cells/mm3
110 (67.9)
86 (68.3)
Platelet reduction < 150000 cells/mm3
75 (46.3)
72 (57.1)
General adverse events
Fatigue
115 (71)
89 (70.6)
Poor appetite
92 (56.8)
82 (65.1)
Itchiness
16 (9.9)
11 (8.7)
Skin rash
5 (3.1)
0 (0)
Joint pain
20 (12.3)
13 (10.3)
Myalgia/muscle aches
9 (5.6)
8 (6.3)
Hair loss
34 (21)
17 (13.5)
Dizziness
36 (22.2)
31 (24.6)
Insomnia
63 (38.9)
49 (38.9)
Irritability
5 (3.1)
2 (1.6)
Depression
13 (8.0)
5 (4.0)
Thyroid dysfunction
7 (4.3)
1 (0.8)
Citation: Hlaing NKT, Banerjee D, Mitrani R, Arker SH, Win KS, Tun NL, Thant Z, Win KM, Reddy KR. Hepatitis C virus therapy with peg-interferon and ribavirin in Myanmar: A resource-constrained country. World J Gastroenterol 2016; 22(43): 9613-9622