interferon reduces liver related deaths

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Interferon Helps Prevent Liver-Related Deaths for Hepatitis C Patients

Interferon therapy improves the likelihood that hepatitis C patients will survive by preventing liver-related deaths, according to a study reported in the August issue of the journal Gastroenterology.

Knowing that the effects of interferon therapy in chronic hepatitis C patients on survival were unclear, Japanese researchers sought to further clarify this issue by studying a large cohort of chronic hepatitis C patients.

Their retrospective study involved seven university hospitals and one regional hospital in Japan and encompassed 2,889 patients with chronic hepatitis C. Of those patients, 2,430 received interferon therapy, while 459 patients went untreated. The median dose and duration of interferon administration was 480 million units and 137 days.

The researchers found overall mortality to be high among the untreated patients, but not among interferon-treated patients, according to the researchers. The researchers found that interferon-treated patients were almost 37 percent less likely to die than untreated patients and 28 percent less likely to die due to liver-related reasons.

"This is one of an increasing number of reports that demonstrate the benefits of interferon therapy," said the editors of Gastroenterology. "The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma in Japan is much higher than that seen in the United States, whereas the death rate from liver failure seems to be less.

"Despite these differences, the significant impact of interferon on survival holds promise as we anticipate the rapidly increasing rates of hepatocellular carcinoma in the United States over the next few decades," they concluded.

Source: Gastroenterology

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