Hiroki Nishikawa, Hirayuki Enomoto, Masaki Saito, Nobuhiro Aizawa, Yasuhiro Tsuda, Kazuhide Higuchi, Kazuichi Okazaki, Toshihito Seki, Soo Ryang Kim, Yasushi Hongo, Hisato Jyomura, Naoshi Nishida, Masatoshi Kudo, Yukio Osaki and Shuhei Nishiguchi
Treatment Response and Tolerability in Elderly Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C: Subgroup Analysis in ReGIT-J Study
Background: We previously reported response-guided therapy (RGT) of peginterferon (Peg-IFN)-2a with or without ribavirin (RBV) for chronic hepatitis C (CHC) of genotype 1b (a multicenter randomized trial, ReGIT-J study). Here, we performed a subgroup analysis of the ReGIT-J study according to age. Methods: The sustained virological response (SVR) rate and the treatment discontinuation rate were calculated in both groups. Results: In the elderly group (65 years, n=54), the SVR rate in the RGT group was higher than in the non- RGT group (50% [9/18] vs 36% [8/22], P=0.385). Similarly, in the control group (<65 years, n=132), the SVR rate in the RGT group was higher than in the non-RGT group (65% [31/48] vs 50% [27/54], P=0.138). In the elderly group, the discontinuation rate in the RGT group was almost significantly lower than in the non-RGT group (0% [0/18] vs 18% [4/22], P=0.057), whereas in the control group, the difference between the groups was not significant (4% [2/48] vs 13% [7/54], P=0.118). Furthermore, in all subgroup analyses, there was no significant difference between the elderly and control groups in terms of treatment response. Conclusion: Our proposed RGT was well tolerated in elderly CHC patients treated with Peg-IFN-2a with or without RBV.
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