[Retreatment strategies for the patients with HCV infection]

Despite recent advances in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C, especially introduction of combined therapy with pegylated interferons with ribavirin, significant number of patients fails to achieve sustained virologic response. Such patients may be divided into relapsers and non-responders.. Pegylated interferon-based retherapy appear to induce sustained response in 40-68% of relapsers and only in 11% of non responders. New therapeutic approaches are needed for treatment of these group of patients. Current retreatment strategies includes administration of pegylated interferon and ribavirin, maintenance therapy with pegylated interferon for prevention of liver fibrosis and daily administration of consensus interferon and ribavirin. In the work the initial results of 3 clinical investigation (HALT-C, EPIC 3 and COPILOT) are presented, in which beneficial efficacy of pegylated interferon in non responders was observed.