Hepatitis C: A Critical Analysis of Therapeutic Response Predictors

Treatment of chronic hepatitis C is still unspecific. However, there is great expectancy concerning the new pegylated interferons. As there has been much controversy about the best parameters to determine whether treatment is effective, we analyzed several criteria currently used for evaluation, including serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) normalization, viral load reduction and improvement of hepatic histology. Key Words: ALT normalization, hepatitis C, viral load reduction. Viral Hepatitis C (VHC) is currently one of the most important worldwide public health problems. Its global prevalence is estimated to be around 3%, ranging from 0.1 % to 5 % [1]. Focaccia, et al. [2] found 1.42 % seroprevalence for Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in the city of São Paulo (2.2 % among the 31-40 year-old group and 3.2 % among the over 60 year-old group). The incidence of new symptomatic cases in U.S