Prognostic factors determining the outcome of treatment in chronic hepatitis C.

After a brief introduction in terminology and a distinction between predictors and determinants or response to therapy in chronic hepatitis C, a review of the wide literature on this topic is presented. None of the pretreatment variables or combination of them can be used as an absolute predictor of response in individual patients. Prognostic factors can help in clinical practice for informing and counseling patients of the likelihood of response. Information on pretreatment HCV RNA levels and HCV genotype can improve the cost benefit of therapy. Predictors of response should be properly evaluated in terms of positive predictive value, negative predictive value and accuracy. The strongest hitherto predictor of sustained response to any therapeutic regimen in chronic hepatitis is the clearance of HCV RNA during treatment. Recent data suggest that sequencing of several regions of the HCV genome may provide important prognostic information on the outcome of therapy. In complex and difficult to treat subsets of patients with chronic HCV infection, available data on predictors and determinants of the outcome of treatment are limited.