Fig. 4.

The association of sustained virological response to pegylated interferon and ribavirin with the frequency of specific subpopulations of natural killer (NK) cells. (a) Pretreatment frequencies of CD56^dim NK cells expressing the indicated receptors in individuals with (filled squares) and without (filled circles) sustained virological response (SVR) plotted on the left Y-axis. Also shown are the frequencies of the CD56^bright NK cells from the same individuals plotted on the right Y-axis (open squares denote individuals with SVR and open circles those without SVR). (b) Pretreatment frequency of CD56^dim NK cells expressing the indicated receptors on individuals with (squares) and without (circles) SVR. Comparisons between those with and without SVR were made using the Mann–Whitney U-test. (c–f) changes in the indicated subpopulations of NK cells during treatment. Statistical comparisons were made using the analysis of variance (anova) test. For all panels P-values of less 0·05 are indicated.