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. 1994 Jul;97(1):4–9. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2249.1994.tb06571.x

Biological and clinical significance of neutralizing and binding antibodies to interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) during therapy for chronic hepatitis C.

G Giannelli 1, G Antonelli 1, G Fera 1, S Del Vecchio 1, E Riva 1, C Broccia 1, O Schiraldi 1, F Dianzani 1
PMCID: PMC1534778  PMID: 8033418

Abstract

It is known that IFN therapy can induce the development of anti-IFN antibodies. In order to evaluate the biological and clinical significance of both neutralizing (NA) and non-neutralizing (binding) antibodies, 123 patients with chronic hepatitis C treated with recombinant IFN-alpha were examined. Among them, 15 were positive for NA and 24 for binding antibodies. The kinetics of NA appearance show that, in general, they develop early during the first 3 months of treatment. Moreover, NA seem to be clinically relevant, since they may be responsible for non-responsiveness to treatment in 53% of patients who develop them. The evaluation of the clinical significance of binding antibodies is more difficult. They appear significantly earlier in non-responders than in responders, but no differences were observed in the overall percentage of seroconversion between responders and non-responders. Thus, it is not possible at the moment to establish their possible role in inducing non-responsiveness.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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