Co-infected people tend to be more susceptible to this effect. These are simple blood tests that indicate the amount of damage each patient has. They are not perfect but they are very good and I use them every day treating hundreds of hepatitis C patients. Frail patients and cirrhotics usually start with 500,000 units daily of Intron or Roferon. I treat decompensated cirrhotics successfully with low titrated doses of interferon and ribavirin.
Studies are also underway in co-infected people using pegylated interferons.
These drugs should be available later this year. Most research with them has been done to date in individuals infected with HCV alone. Schering has released little data on their drug yet. This is the highest rate shown in any HCV study to date. This looks promising for co-infected individuals as well.