Orito E, Mizokami M, Yasuda K, Sugihara K, Nakamura M, Mukaide M, Ohba K I, Nakano T, Kato T, Kondo Y, Kumada T, Ueda R, Iino S
Second Department of Medicine, Nagoya City University, Medical School, Nagoya, Japan.
J Hepatol. 1997 Oct;27(4):603-12. doi: 10.1016/s0168-8278(97)80076-1.
BACKGROUND/AIMS: The response to interferon-alpha (IFN) therapy of recently isolated GB virus C and hepatitis G virus (HGV) is still unclear. To investigate the biochemical and virological response to IFN therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection concomitantly infected with HGV, 196 patients with HCV who had received IFN therapy were retrospectively studied.
HGV and HCV RNA were detected by reverse transcription nested polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Serum HGV RNA levels were quantified by competitive RT-PCR. The HGV genotype was detected by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis using the PCR products.
Of 196 patients, 16 (8.2%) were positive for both HCV and HGV RNA before IFN therapy. There were no significant clinical and virological differences between the patients with dual infection and those with only HCV infection. During the therapy, a decrease or loss of serum HGV RNA level was observed in these patients. Six months after cessation of the therapy, five of 16 patients became negative for HGV RNA by RT-PCR. The pretreatment HGV RNA level of the patients who lost HGV RNA after cessation of IFN was low (median=10(3) copies/ml), compared to the level (median=10(7) copies/ml, p<0.01) in the patients with positive HGV RNA after the therapy. The HGV genotype of these 16 patients was the same type.
These data suggest that: 1) there is no significant difference in response to IFN therapy between patients with dual and single infection; 2) HGV shows sensitivity to IFN therapy; and 3) in the patients who show a low pretreatment HGV RNA level, serum HGV RNA becomes undetectable by RT-PCR after cessation of IFN therapy.
背景/目的：近期分离出的GB病毒C型和庚型肝炎病毒（HGV）对α干扰素（IFN）治疗的反应仍不明确。为研究慢性丙型肝炎病毒（HCV）感染合并HGV感染患者对IFN治疗的生化和病毒学反应，对196例接受IFN治疗的HCV患者进行了回顾性研究。
采用逆转录巢式聚合酶链反应（RT-PCR）检测HGV和HCV RNA。通过竞争性RT-PCR对血清HGV RNA水平进行定量。使用PCR产物通过限制性片段长度多态性分析检测HGV基因型。
196例患者中，16例（8.2%）在IFN治疗前HCV和HGV RNA均为阳性。双重感染患者与仅HCV感染患者之间在临床和病毒学方面无显著差异。治疗期间，这些患者血清HGV RNA水平出现下降或消失。治疗停止6个月后，16例患者中有5例RT-PCR检测HGV RNA呈阴性。与治疗后HGV RNA仍为阳性的患者（中位数 = 10⁷拷贝/ml，p < 0.01）相比，IFN停止后HGV RNA消失的患者治疗前HGV RNA水平较低（中位数 = 10³拷贝/ml）。这16例患者的HGV基因型相同。
这些数据表明：1）双重感染和单一感染患者对IFN治疗的反应无显著差异；2）HGV对IFN治疗敏感；3）治疗前HGV RNA水平较低的患者，IFN治疗停止后RT-PCR检测不到血清HGV RNA。
