[Antiviral therapy of hepatitis C]

Hepatitis C is one of the world's leading infectious diseases. The interferon-ribavirin combination therapy is the new standard for the treatment of hepatitis C in naive and relapse patients. Virological sustained response rates can be more than doubled by the IFN-ribavirin combination therapy compared to IFN-monotherapy and treatment duration can be reduced to six months in many cases. The IFN-ribavirin combination therapy has a high relative benefit in patients with unfavorable predictive parameters like high viral load, HCV genotype-1 infection and compensated liver cirrhosis. Anemia is the most important side effect of the guanosin analogue ribavirin. There are no official therapeutic recommendations for non-responder patients at present. These patients should be treated within controlled clinical trials. Monotherapy with PEG(pegylated)-interferons and combination therapies with PEG-interferons and ribavirin are the most promising future therapeutic options.