الفهرس 
1. Introduction and aim of the workOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Hepatitis C virus is a major public health problem leading to death
worldwide; about 200 million people are infected. Egypt has the highest
prevalence of HCV infection in the world approximately 14.5 % (about 11
millions) anti-HCV positive individuals and may reach to 20% in certain
areas infected mainly with genotype 4a.
Only 20% - 30% of HCV-infected individuals can recover the acute
infection spontaneously during the first six months, while the remaining
proportion develops chronic infection with risk to develop hepatitis, liver
cirrhosis and about 5% - 20 % may develop hepatocellular carcinoma
leading to death at the end. Combination therapy of pegylated interferon
and ribavirin has been recommended and approved for treatment of
patients with chronic HCV infection. The high cost of treatment, its side
effects and also the low response rates to treatment are limitations related
to this type of treatment. Thus, it is highly desirable to identify baseline
factors that could predict the treatment outcome. Various predictors of
response (whether viral factors as genotype and viral load or host factors
as histological, immunological and genetic factors) to IFN plus ribavirin -
based treatment can be used to determine the outcome of therapy.