Combination therapy using pegylated interferon and ribavirin can render the virus undetectable in up to 5 out of 10 persons
with genotype 1 and in up to 8 out of 10 persons with genotypes 2 and 3.
You and your doctor will be looking to achieve these main goals through your treatment: reduction of the level of the virus
(virologic response) and reduction of liver inflammation (histologic response).
- Virologic response is the more common way to look at hepatitis C treatment success. To measure virologic response, doctors use a blood test to measure how much hepatitis C virus is in the blood (this is also known as your "viral load"). The best virologic response would be a "sustained virologic response," which simply means that the virus remains undetectable in your blood 6 months or more after you complete hepatitis C therapy. Such a result is very good news: in studies that followed patients for 2 to 3 years after their sustained virologic response, fewer than 1% of patients had a recurrence of infection after this point.
- Histologic response, another way to evaluate hepatitis C therapy, looks to see if liver inflammation has gone down. Therapy may help your liver by reducing inflammation.
Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) is an enzyme that is normally found in the liver cells and in the blood. An increase in ALT levels indicates liver damage. However, a single ALT test cannot usually reveal the severity of liver damage. Also, about 40% of people with chronic hepatitis C do not have elevated ALT levels. So, although it is often tested and can be useful in many situations, your ALT level alone is not sufficient to determine the progression of your condition even if your ALT is normal.
I want to know more about how well PEGASYS works.
I want to know more about test results and what they mean.
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