[Combination therapy of IFN and ribavirin]

Ribavirin is a purine nucleoside analog that inhibits the replication of a wide range of DNA and RNA viruses, although ribavirin treatment dose not significantly decrease serum virus load in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Several lines of evidence from the randomized large-scale studies of USA and Europe indicate that combination therapy with ribavirin significantly enhances the sustained response rate of IFN therapy in major patient types with chronic hepatitis C. A recent trial in Japan also proved that the combination therapy is superior to IFN monotherapy. Thus, IFN-ribavirin combination is likely to become the antiviral therapy of choice for chronic hepatitis C.