Table 2.
Characteristics of 313 chronic hepatitis C genotype 2 patients treated with a combination of pegylated interferon plus ribavirin according to age (mean ± SD)
| Group C (age < 65 yr) (n = 252) | Group D (age ≥ 65 yr) (n = 61) | P-value | |
| Age (yr) | 47.7 ± 10.4 | 69.2 ± 3.4 | < 0.001 |
| Male/female | 124/128 | 28/33 | 0.671 |
| Body mass index (kg/m2) | 23.1 ± 3.5 | 22.8 ± 2.9 | 0.577 |
| Prior IFN monotherapy, n (%) | 47 (18.7) | 16 (26.2) | < 0.001 |
| Prior combined IFN plus RBV treatment, n (%) | 5 (2.0) | 4 (6.6) | 0.056 |
| Alanine aminotransferase (IU/L) | 79.9 ± 78.7 | 68.9 ± 52.9 | 0.821 |
| γ-glutamyltranspeptidase (IU/L) | 55.8 ± 64.7 | 44.3 ± 34.7 | 0.937 |
| Albumin (g/dL) | 4.2 ± 0.4 | 3.9 ± 0.5 | < 0.001 |
| White blood cell count (/mm3) | 5276.3 ± 1636.3 | 4958.0 ± 1495.6 | 0.005 |
| Hemoglobin (g/dL) | 14.1 ± 1.4 | 13.4 ± 1.3 | < 0.001 |
| Platelet count (109/L) | 18.9 ± 6.3 | 15.6 ± 4.7 | < 0.001 |
| Creatinine (mg/dL) | 0.8 ± 1.5 | 0.7 ± 0.2 | 0.581 |
| Creatinine clearance (mL/min) | 112.1 ± 31.4 | 74.6 ± 17.2 | < 0.001 |
| Serum HCV-RNA level (kIU/mL) | 1588.3 ± 1628.7 | 1195.4 ± 1645.5 | 0.038 |
| Histological fibrosis | < 0.001 | ||
| F0/F1/F2/F3/F4 | 30/77/39/10/10 | 1/21/9/2/12 |
IFN: Interferon; RBV: Ribavirin; HCV: Hepatitis C virus.