Possible Cure for Chronic Hepatitis C Infections

for 48 week and then they were followed for the presence of Hepatitis C virus for 24 weeks (6 months). They found that nearly 61 percent of the patients treated in this way were still negative for Hepatitis C virus. In fact, some of the investigators are even pointing to the possibility that these patients may have been CURED.

An important finding of these studies was that patients who became negative for the presence of Hepatitis C virus did so early in the treatment. Therefore, if treatment with regular interferon/ribavirin is not working the physicians could switch them to the PEG-interferon/ribavirin treatment and still effect a cure.

Another exciting fact from another study demonstrated that patients who were unsuccessfully treated with the standard interferon/ribavirin therapy could be treated with the PEG-interferon/ribavirin and 35 percent of those difficult-to-treat patients were negative for Hepatitis C virus halfway through their 48 week treatment.

The reality of this treatment is that 50-60 percent is still not a great cure rate. Especially, if you are in the 40-50 percent the therapy does not work for. Twenty-four weeks of no virus in the blood is also not absolute evidence of a cure. Forty eight weeks of therapy is also very tough on the patients. Therefore, more work still needs to be done to make the therapies better and more effective. Hopefully, further research will allow this to happen.

For more information:
MSN article
CDC information on Hepatitis C infections

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