Pretreatment prediction of anemia progression by pegylated interferon alpha-2b plus ribavirin combination therapy in chronic hepatitis C infection: decision-tree analysis.

Background: This study aimed to develop a model to predict the development of severe anemia during pegylated interferon alpha-2b plus ribavirin combination therapy.

Methods: Data were collected from 1081 genotype 1b chronic hepatitis C patients who were treated at 6 hospitals in Japan. These patients were randomly assigned to a model-building group (n = 691) or an internal validation group (n = 390).