Factors predicting interferon treatment response in patients with chronic hepatitis c: late viral clearance does not preclude a sustained response.

Objectives: Because of the suboptimal efficacy, cost, and adverse effects of interferon in chronic hepatitis C (HCV), predictors have been sought to detect patients with a good treatment response. Also, markers for determining a poor response early in the course of therapy, such as the lack of early viral clearance, have been proposed.

Methods: Ninety-seven patients with chronic hepatitis C were enrolled to receive leukocyte alpha-interferon according to a stepped-care management protocol.

Leukocyte interferon-alpha in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C in Finland.

Background: To evaluate the efficacy of leukocyte interferon in previously untreated patients with chronic hepatitis C, 97 patients were enrolled in a prospective study in Finland with a stepped-care management protocol.

Methods: The treatment was initiated with 3 million units of interferon-alpha subcutaneously three times a week. At 3 months, if the serum alanine aminotransferase was still abnormal, the dose was doubled.

Hepatitis C genotypes in Finland determined by RFLP.

Genotyping of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is important because of its clinical and epidemiological implications. We report here the distribution of HCV genotypes in various patient groups in Finland using a rapid and reliable HCV typing method based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) of the amplified DNA from the 5' non-coding region of the genome. The reaction product from the primary, diagnostic PCR (nested, one tube system) was used in genotyping.

Phosphorylation of Okazaki-like DNA fragments in mammalian cells and role of polyamines in the processing of this DNA.

In mammalian cells DNA synthesis is more complicated than in prokaryotes and less well understood. Here we incubated intact mammalian cells (polyamine auxotrophic Chinese hamster ovary cells and primary human fibroblasts) with [32P]orthophosphate and found that, besides high molecular weight DNA, a species of low molecular weight DNA, approximately 450 bp in size, became efficiently labeled. The short DNA was labeled first, and in pulse-chase experiments the labeling was transient.