Author: Allah Nawaz, Halima Nazar, Khan Usmanghani, Zeeshan Ahmed Sheikh, Muhammad Amjad Chishti1 and Irshad Ahmad
Publishing Date: 2016
E-ISSN: 1011-601X
Volume: 29 Issue: 3
ABSTRACT:
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a serious and significant global health problem in the Pakistan and elsewhere. In majority of cases HCV infection remains asymptomatic but in advance cases it may progress to fibrosis of liver, shrinkage of liver cells or failure of liver. The hepatitis C may progress to cause liver cirrhosis that mostly develop in 20% of the affected patients in 20 years with an increased risk in male, alcoholic drink, immune-compromised and who acquire HCV infection after the age of 40 years. This was an open-label prospective study conducted on 66 clinically and immunologically diagnosed cases of HCV infection. In Hepcinal treated group, there were significant improvement in HCV associated symptoms compared to control group (p<0.05). While Interferon therapy resulted in significant improvement in serological response (55.88%) compared to Hepcinal treated patients (46.88%). It was concluded that Hepcinal has shown better clinical response but no significant serological response (p=0.3244) and it might be an alternative therapy to treat hepatitis C infection and to prevent its progression into chronic ailment.
KEYWORDS: Hepatitis C, chronic active hepatitis C, interferon.