Table 3. Characteristics of patients that showed immediate virologic response or non-response to PEG-IFNα2b plus ribavirin combination therapy.
| Immediate virologic responders | Non-responders | P-value | |
| Age† | 50.5 (45–68) | 60 (55–69) | 0.12 |
| Sex (male/female) | 5/3 | 5/3 | 1 |
| Alanine aminotransaminase† (IU/l) | 54 (15–198) | 72 (30–143) | 0.51 |
| Total bilirubin† (mg/dl) | 0.6 (0.4–1.8) | 0.8 (0.4–1.4) | 0.34 |
| Platelet count† (×104/mm3) | 18.9 (7.1–27.2) | 16.7 (11.6–22.5) | 0.68 |
| HCV genotype | 1b | 1b | |
| HCV viral load† (log IU/ml) | |||
| pre-treatment | 6.6 (6.2–7.5) | 6.9 (6.1–7.6) | 0.43 |
| after treatment | 4.6 (4.0–5.2) | 6.5 (6.1–6.8) | 0.028 |
| Final outcome | 0.025 | ||
| sustained viral response | 6 | 0 | |
| Relapse | 1 | 1 | |
| non-response | 0 | 6 | |
| withdraw* | 1 | 1 |
† Values are median (range).
* The treatment was discontinued in one immediate virologic responder and one non-responder, due to the side effect of IFN and the development of liver cancer, respectively.