The preferred treatment for hepatitis C, peg-interferon and ribavirin, is safe for people who are also infected with HIV, according to a new study in the July 29 issue of "The New England Journal of Medicine". Moreover, this treatment proved superior for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in HIV-coinfected persons when compared with the previously accepted treatment, standard interferon and ribavirin.

The study compared the effectiveness of two forms of interferon: a once-weekly dose of peg-interferon and standard interferon taken three times weekly. Peg- interferon with ribavirin is currently the approved treatment for hepatitis C in persons without HIV. Prior to this study, limited data were available on the benefit and safety of peg-interferon and ribavirin in HIV-infected people, a release from NIH said.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), both parts of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIAID's Adult AIDS Clinical Trials Group conducted the study at 21 research centres in the United States.

NIAID director Anthony S Fauci said, "We are pleased to see such a clear and definitive result from this study. Just a decade ago treatment of HCV in persons infected with HIV was not a priority because they died from AIDS before developing serious complications of hepatitis C infection. As new anti-HIV drug treatments extend the lives of HIV-positive individuals, studies like this one provide essential guidance on treating other serious health problems affecting people living with HIV."

The 133 HIV-positive study volunteers were randomly assigned to take peg-interferon or interferon for 48 weeks. All study volunteers also took ribavirin, an antiviral drug that is also part of standard therapy for hepatitis C. Study volunteers who completed the treatments -16 withdrew early for various reasons -were followed for 24 more weeks to evaluate long term treatment success.

In the group that took peg-interferon, 27 per cent of patients had no detectable HCV in their blood 24 weeks after completing treatment (sustained response). In contrast, of those who took interferon, only 12 per cent had a sustained response. Importantly, more than one third of those volunteers who failed to clear HCV appeared to experience improvement in their liver biopsies, suggesting the treatment was beneficial in this group as well. Researchers also found that the volunteers whose HCV levels failed to fall substantially within the first 12 weeks never experienced a sustained response.

"We carefully monitored the study volunteers for side effects. Most tolerated the treatments well, and relatively few discontinued therapy prematurely. We were also encouraged that HIV infection remained under control during
the study," says Raymond T Chung, lead investigator and director of the Center for Liver Disorders in the Gastrointestinal Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that HCV infects about 25,000 Americans annually and is responsible for about 8,000 to 10,000 deaths per year. About 3.9 million Americans have been infected with HCV, 2.7 million of whom are chronically infected, according to the CDC. It is also estimated that of the 1 million HIV-infected Americans, about 300,000 are also infected with HCV.