Parameters predicting response to ursodeoxycholic acid therapy in chronic hepatitis C
| Autor: | Hideharu Harada, Seiyou Murai, Michiyasu Yagura, Hiroshi Kojima, Hajime Tokita |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1999 |
| Předmět: |
medicine.medical_specialty
Choleretic Hepatology business.industry Hepatitis C virus Histology medicine.disease medicine.disease_cause Gastroenterology digestive system diseases Ursodeoxycholic acid Infectious Diseases Chronic hepatitis Pharmacokinetics Fibrosis Internal medicine Immunology Medicine Viral disease business medicine.drug |
| Zdroj: | Hepatology Research. 14:18-25 |
| ISSN: | 1386-6346 |
| Popis: | We investigated the parameters predicting the response to ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) therapy in chronic hepatitis C patients. A total of 62 patients, with histologically proven chronic hepatitis C and elevated serum alanin aminotransferase (ALT) levels for more than 6 months, were treated with 600 mg/day of UDCA for 24 months and retrospectively divided into three groups according to the response to UDCA therapy; G1 was defined as patients whose ALT levels had not improved compared with pretreatment ALT levels for more than 6 successive months during therapy; G2 as patients whose ALT levels had improved compared with pretreatment ALT levels for more than 6 months, but had not normalized during therapy; and G3 as patients those whose ALT levels normalized for more than 6 months during therapy. As a result, there were no significant differences among the three groups with respect to duration of illness, hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype, HCV-RNA levels, the amount of total serum bile acids and its composition, or other demographic features before UDCA therapy. However, ALT levels and HAI scores, including inflammatory/hepatic activity and fibrosis categories for liver histology before therapy, were significantly lower in G3 than G1 and G2. These observations suggest that lower ALT levels and lower histological severity before therapy contribute towards the normalization of ALT levels as a response to UDCA therapy in chronic hepatitis C. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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