Background: There are few predictors of the virological response in patients who are re-treated with antiviral therapies. In this study, we evaluated the levels of chemokines that bind to C-C chemokine receptor type 5 (CCR5) and their impact on combination therapy in both treatment-naïve and treatment-experienced patients chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV).
Methods: Longitudinal analysis of CCR5 chemokines was performed using the multiplex Bio-Rad 27-plex assay in 56 treatment-naïve and 24 treatment-experienced patients with chronic HCV infection during combination therapy with peginterferon alfa and ribavirin. A group of healthy donors was included as the control (n=11).
Results: The pretreatment level of macrophage inflammatory protein 1 (MIP-1) was determined to be an independent predictor, with an ideal predictive threshold for sustained virological response of 95.23 pg/ml. A rapid decline in HCV RNA was observed in patients with a pretreatment MIP-1 level of <95.23 pg/ml, while a slow reduction was measured in patients with levels of ≥95.23 pg/ml (p=0.014). Of note, the dynamics of MIP-1 further indicated that a lower level at baseline and at treatment week 12 was significantly associated with a favorable outcome of antiviral therapy (p=0.014), especially in treatment-experienced patients (p=0.04), while a higher level of MIP-1beta correlated with the elevation of transaminases.
Conclusions: Serum MIP-1 is an independent and effective predictor of early and sustained virological response in chronically HCV-infected patients undergoing re-treatment.
Keywords: Chronic hepatitis C virus; Infection; MIP-1; Sustained virological responses.
Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.