الفهرس 
Disovery of hepatitis C virusOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Introduction: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a global
public health problem, affecting 2-3% of the world’s population. Egypt
consider the highest incidence of HCV worldwide (15%), where HCV
genotype-4 (HCV-4a) represents 90% of all HCV cases. In 2005, the
combination of Pegylated Interferon (PEG-IFN) and Ribavirin (RBV) was
the standard of care (SOC) treatment, it was only effective in 50% of
patients. lately, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
approved direct acting antiviral agents (DAAs) which increased sustained
virological response (SVR) to 90%. But due to the high cost and adverse
effects of the treatment, it is a compelling reason for the identification of
biomarker predictors of disorder response to treatment. One of the most
vital biomarker predictors is single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) close
to Interleukin 28B (IL-28B) gene. This study aimed at assessing whether
specific IL-28B gene polymorphisms (SNPs), known as rs12979860 could
predict treatment outcomes among chronic HCV-4 patients treated with the
Peg-IFN/RBV treatment. Methods: Fifty healthy individuals and 75
chronic HCV-4 Egyptian patients were selected. HCV infected patients
submitted to combined PEG-IFN/RBV therapy, 39 of them have SVR
while the last 36 did not response. IL-28B rs12979860 SNPs have been
carried out within the healthy controls and HCV infected patients by the
technique of polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length
polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Results: The CC genotype of IL-28B
rs12979860 was identified in 21 patients, 18 of them achieved SVR, while
the CT heterozygous was detected in 43 patients, 20 of them achieved SVR
and the TT was found in 11 patients and only one of them was responder.There was a significant association in genotypes distribution of IL-28B
rs12979860 between healthy controls and chronic HCV (CHCV) patients
(P=0.03). Genotypes were significantly associated with response,
genotypes between SVR and NR appeared significant relationship
(P=0.000). Also, IL-28B rs12979860 polymorphism was significantly
associated with alpha fetoprotein (AFP) (P=0.047). Conclusion: The
statistics observed association between IL-28B rs12979860 genotypes in
Egyptian HCV G4 and treatment response is an important predictive
biomarker for SVR in patients with HCV genotype-4. Also, it is observed
that AFP (cut off 4.5 mg/mL) increases the predictive power of IL28B in
response to treatment.
Key words:
Hepatitis C virus (HCV), PEG-IFN/RBV therapy, IL-28B gene, single
nucleotide polymorphism (SNP),