부산대학교 도서관

Interferon-α has been widely used in chronic hepatitis C, but controlled studies with intramuscular interferon-β are lacking. We therefore performed a prospective, double-blind, randomized study comparing intramuscular IFN-α and -β in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Sixty patients were randomly assigned to receive 3 MU thrice weekly intramuscularly of either recombinant IFN-α or leukocyte IFN-α or fibroblast IFN-β for six months. Nine of 20 patients (45.0%) in the recombinant IFN, 5/19 (26.3%) in the leukocyte IFN, and none in the IFN-β group had a complete response during therapy (recombinant IFN vs IFN-β:P<0.01). Only in IFN-α-treated patients, was infection with a single HCV genotype (type 2a or 2b) associated with significantly better long-term outcome. IFN-α is useful in chronic hepatitis C while intramuscular IFN-β interferon does not exert any beneficial effect. This is probably due to an insufficient bioavailability of IFN-β when given intramuscularly.