The study included 375 patients ages 23 to 76 who had responded to treatment with interferon alone but relapsed after therapy was stopped. Half the patients were randomly assigned to receive both drugs for six months. The others were retreated with interferon alone. Six months following treatment, the virus was not detectable in 49 percent of the patients who received both drugs, compared with only 5 percent who received interferon alone. Interferon, which has been the standard treatment for the disease, is administered by injection.
Ribavirin is taken orally.
You just don't normally clear chronic viral infections, and this response represents eradication of the virus. Patients who are free from detectable levels of the virus in the bloodstream after six months do not relapse. Davis, a professor in UF's College of Medicine, serves as director of the section of hepatobiliary diseases and recently was appointed director of UF's Center for Clinical Trials Research. The study was conducted from April 1996 through July 1997 in the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain. Schering markets the drug combination used in the study, called Rebetron.