TABLE 4.
Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte responses: IFN-γ production in response to HCV peptide pools at different time pointsa
| HCV patient profile | No. of patients | No. of patients with positive ELISpot (%)
|
No. of pools
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | Week 12 | Week 48 | Baseline | Week 12 | Week 48 | ||
| Spontaneous recovery | 9 index patients | 0 | 9 (100) | 8 (100) | 0 | 4 | 3 |
| 4 contacts | 0 | 4 (100) | 4 (100) | 0 | 5 | 3 | |
| Persistent aviremia with detectable responses | 8 contacts | 0 | 5 (63) | 5 (63) | 0 | 3 | 2 |
| Persistent aviremia with no detectable responses | 7 contacts | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Chronic evolution | 9 index patients | 0 | 2 (22) | 2 (22) | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| 4 infected contacts | 2 (50) | 2 (50) | 0 | 2 | 1 | ||
a
CTL responses were tested in a subset of subjects who were HLA A2 positive (18 of 52 index patients and 23 of 52 contacts, including eight infected contacts [four with spontaneous recovery and four with chronic evolution], eight contacts with persistent aviremia, and seven noninfected contacts) by using a panel of peptides representing CTL epitopes restricted by HLA.