When viewed under a microscope, liver tissue damaged by chronic infection with the hepatitis C virus shows inflammation. This scarring can eventually cause a condition called cirrhosis, which can lead to liver failure. In some patients, treatment with a drug called interferon eliminates the virus.
Doctors can now measure the amount of virus in patients' blood.
Patients who have no measurable amount of virus in their blood 6 months after interferon treatment are generally considered to have responded well to the drug. Preliminary studies suggest that patients who respond to interferon treatment have improvements in liver inflammation. It is not known, however, whether fibrosis also improves with interferon treatment. To find out what happens to liver fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C who respond to interferon treatment. The researchers studied 593 patients with chronic hepatitis C who happened to have at least two liver biopsies during 1987-1998.