Predictors of response to chronic hepatitis C treatment.

Nowadays the standard of care for hepatitis C therapy is based on pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin (Peg IFN/RBV). This combination has led to a sustained virological response rate (SVR) of 50 to 80% depending on genotype. This is still low, considering the side effects, overall costs and duration of therapy. So far, strategies to foresee SVR have been described such as genotype, fibrosis stage, viral load and gammaglutamyltransferase.In addition, new data has recently been provided on predictive factors of SVR like genetic polymorphism related to race, insulin resistance and viral kinetics. This review aims to discuss these predictive factors of therapy that might help the decision about starting or discontinuing therapy in chronic HCV infected patients.