Table 1.
Characteristics of 938 chronic hepatitis C genotype 1 patients treated with a combination of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin according to age (mean ± SD)
| Group A (age < 65 yr) (n = 685) | Group B (age ≥ 65 yr) (n = 253) | P-value | |
| Age (yr) | 53.1 ± 8.9 | 68.6 ± 3.1 | < 0.001 |
| Male/female | 374/311 | 122/131 | 0.090 |
| Body mass index (kg/m2) | 23.7 ± 3.3 | 22.8 ± 2.7 | < 0.001 |
| Prior IFN monotherapy, n (%) | 163 (23.8) | 76 (30.0) | 0.052 |
| Prior combined IFN plus RBV treatment, n (%) | 51 (7.4) | 20 (7.9) | < 0.001 |
| Alanine aminotransferase (IU/L) | 80.2 ± 62.0 | 67.9 ± 46.6 | 0.004 |
| γ-glutamyltranspeptidase (IU/L) | 60.2 ± 56.6 | 57.1 ± 49.2 | 0.708 |
| Albumin (g/dL) | 4.1 ± 0.4 | 4.0 ± 0.4 | < 0.001 |
| White blood cell count (/mm3) | 5200.0 ± 1476.7 | 4756.3 ± 1458.9 | < 0.001 |
| Hemoglobin (g/dL) | 14.1 ± 1.4 | 13. 5 ± 1.4 | < 0.001 |
| Platelet count (109/L) | 16.6 ± 5.3 | 15.0 ± 5.2 | < 0.001 |
| Creatinine (mg/dL) | 0.7 ± 0.6 | 0.8 ± 1.4 | 0.107 |
| Creatinine clearance (mL/min) | 105.5 ± 28.7 | 75.8 ± 17.5 | < 0.001 |
| Serum HCV-RNA level (kIU/mL) | 1776.1 ± 1500.0 | 1986.9 ± 1604.5 | 0.125 |
| Histological fibrosis | 0.008 | ||
| F0/F1/F2/F3/F4 | 36/155/121/61/30 | 9/46/49/31/17 |
IFN: Interferon; RBV: Ribavirin; HCV: Hepatitis C virus.