Serum hepatitis C virus (HCV)-RNA and response to alpha-interferon in anti-HCV positive chronic hepatitis

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication was assessed before and during alpha-interferon (IFN) treatment in 22 anti-HCV positive patients with posttransfusion or sporadic chronic hepatitis (CH). Eleven patients were “responders” and 11 patients “non-responders” to IFN. Thirteen anti-HCV negative healthy subjects and five anti-HCV negative patients with autoimmune CH served as controls. Serum HCV-RNA was detected by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in all untreated anti-HCV positive patients but in none of the anti-HCV negative subjects. PCR primers from the 5′-non-coding (NC) region were more sensitive than primers from a non-structural (NS5) region in detecting HCV-RNA (21/22, 95% vs. 7/22, …