Rate of cirrhosis progression reduced in HIV/HCV co-infected non-responders to anti-HCV therapy
De Bona, A.; Galli, L.; Gallotta, G.; Guzzo, A.; Alagna, L.; Lazzarin, A.; Uberti-Foppa, C.
New Microbiologica 30(3): 259-264
2007
ISSN/ISBN: 1121-7138 PMID: 17802905 Document Number: 612214
This is a retrospective longitudinal follow-up study of 25 HIV/HCV positive cirrhotic patients not responding to peg-IFN plus ribavirin, and 25 untreated controls matched for age (+/-5 years), gender and Child-Pugh score. The primary endpoint of the study was the incidence of cirrhosis progression (CP) defined as the occurrence of at least one of the following events: death, ascites, jaundice, encephalopathy, gastrointestinal bleeding and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). During the median follow-up of 54 months (34-89), four treated (16%) and 13 untreated patients (52%) experienced CP (p = 0.02). Poisson's regression model showed that the independent predictors of CP were Peg-IFN therapy (p = 0.016), positive HIV-RNA (p = 0.024), and altered ALP values (p = 0.012). Peg-IFN therapy seems to slow down the rate of cirrhosis progression also in HIV/HCV co-infected patients nonresponders to anti-HCV therapy, in comparison with untreated patients.