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To the Editor: Dr Flamm¹ briefly addressed the question of whether medication should be discontinued early in patients with HCV who do not respond early to treatment. Early virologic response, defined as a minimum 2 log decrease in viral load during the first 12 weeks of treatment, is predictive of sustained virologic response.² Flamm recommended stopping treatment if quantitative HCV-RNA titers do not decline by more than 2 logs by week 12 of therapy, in patients infected by either genotype 1, 2, or 3. Patients with genotype 1 who fail to achieve an early response at week 12 of treatment have only a small chance of achieving a sustained response even if therapy is continued for a full year.³ However, patients infected by genotype 2 or 3 have a high probability of a sustained response.³ Thus, viral-RNA quantification at 12 weeks does not seem warranted in either of these situations. . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Hakan Leblebicioglu, MD
Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology
Ondokuz Mayis University Medical School
Samsun, Turkey

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