Speaker: Douglas T. Dieterich, MD, Vice Chair and Chief Medical Officer, Department of Medicine, and Professor of Medicine, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, New York

Patients who are co-infected with HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) who achieve a sustained virological response with peginterferon alfa-2a (Pegasys®, Roche) and ribavirin generic (Rebe-tol®, Schering) combination therapy have a much improved health-related quality of life (HRQL) compared with co-infected patients who remain HCV-positive.

An analysis of data from APRICOT (the AIDS Pegasys Ribavirin International Co-infection Trial), a pivotal study that evaluated the safety and efficacy of pegylated interferon/ ribavirin combination therapy in 860 co-infected patients, was performed to measure the differences in HRQL in respon-ders versus nonresponders. Initially, these patients were randomly treated with 48 weeks of peginterferon alfa-2a 180 mg weekly plus ribavirin 800 mg/day or with standard interferon plus ribavirin.

Overall, 40% of patients taking the peginterferon alfa-2a plus ribavirin combination therapy achieved a sustained virological response, which represents a significant positive difference in favor of this therapy versus the comparator group (P < .0001).

At the end of 72 weeks of follow-up, patients who received peginterferon-alfa-2a plus ribavirin canadian and who achieved a sustained virological response had a better HRQL than non-responders on seven of eight domains, as measured by the Short Form 36-item (SF-36) Health Survey and the Fatigue Severity Scale. These domains included physical functioning, social functioning, physical role, general health, mental health, pain index, and vitality. Differences in vitality, general health, Fatigue Severity Scale scores, and Visual Analog Scale scores were statistically and clinically significant.