Generation of neutralizing anti-interferon antibodies and its influence on the interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) treatment for chronic hepatitis C

Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between neutralizing antibodies to interferonalpha and its effect on the interferon antiviral treatment in patients with chronic hepatitis C.Methods The total anti-IFN Ab and neutralizing antibodies (NA) were detected by enzyme immunoassay (EIA) and antiviral neutralizing bioassay (ANB) , respectively.The antibodies were measured in the serum of 92 patients with chronic hepatitis C before treatment and in different periods during the treatment with IFN-α1b or PegIFNα-2a.Results Of the 92 patients, 16 were positive for NA during the treatment course, resulting in an overall NA occurrence rate of 17.39% .The positive rates of NA were significantly higher in group of responders with breakthrough than the group with sustained virological response (SVR) (P <0.05) ;meanwhile, the NA incidence rate was significantly higher in difficult-to-treat population in Hepatitis C than the group of SVR (P < 0.05) .Multinomial logistic regression analysis showed a positive correlation between the positive rates of NA and pretreatment HCV RNA level.Conclusion The phenomenon of break through during antiviral therapy with IFN-α seems to be an obvious consequence of anti-IFN neutralizing antibody.The development of NA may be one of the factors for difficult-to-treat population in Hepatitis C.