Side Effects of Pegylated Interferon/Ribavirin Therapy in Chronic HCV Egyptian patients; A Single Center Study

Abstract

SUMMARY T his study included 1000 patients infected by chronic HCV receiving pegylated interferon alpha 2 a (180µg/week) subcutaneously or pegylated interferon α-2b (1.5 µg/kg weekly) plus oral ribavirin (The ribavirin dose ranged between 1000 and 1200 mg/day according to body weight (>75 kg, 1200 mg/day and ≤75 kg, 1000 mg/day respectively) (Kamal et al., 2011; EASL, 2014). For 48 weeks who attended Sohag center of hepatolgoy system between December 2010 and December 2011. The aim of this study was to describe side effects in chronic hepatitis C patients treated by pegylated interferon and ribavirin by evaluating baseline and during treatment side effects at weeks 4, 12, 24, 72 and 48 weeks after finishing the treatment. The patients were evaluated by: 1- Complete history taking and thorough clinical examination. 2- Laboratory investigations including: a) Liver profile including; ALT, AST, PT and albumin. b) Serum creatinine and thyroid profile. c) CBC was done every two weeks during the first twelve weeks then monthly till finishing the treatment. d) Quantitative HCV RNA level by PCR was done before the treatment then at the 4th, 12th, 24th and the 48th weeks then follow up 3 and 6 months post treatment. 3- Abdominal Ultrasonography, Liver biopsy and upper GI endoscopy. The results of this study demonstrated that: The incidence of the studied patients who had decrease in the Hb level 2 gm below the baseline before treatment were 3.4% at the 4th week, 3.8% of patients at the 12th week, 2.25% at the 24th week and 0.99% of patients 48th week.. As regarding leucopenia, it was found that 9.23% of the studied patients had decrease WBCs count <2000 cells/ml3, 1.1% of patients had leucopenia in the 4th week, 3.6% at the 12th week, 3.61% at the 24th week and just 0.79% at the 48th week.