PLoS ONE (Jan 2014)

Vitamin D levels vary during antiviral treatment but are unable to predict treatment outcome in HCV genotype 1 infected patients.

  • Georgios Grammatikos,
  • Christian Lange,
  • Simone Susser,
  • Susanne Schwendy,
  • Nektarios Dikopoulos,
  • Peter Buggisch,
  • Jens Encke,
  • Gerlinde Teuber,
  • Tobias Goeser,
  • Robert Thimme,
  • Hartwig Klinker,
  • Wulf O Boecher,
  • Ewert Schulte-Frohlinde,
  • Marissa Penna-Martinez,
  • Klaus Badenhoop,
  • Stefan Zeuzem,
  • Thomas Berg,
  • Christoph Sarrazin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0087974
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 2
p. e87974

Abstract

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Different parameters have been determined for prediction of treatment outcome in hepatitis c virus genotype 1 infected patients undergoing pegylated interferon, ribavirin combination therapy. Results on the importance of vitamin D levels are conflicting. In the present study, a comprehensive analysis of vitamin D levels before and during therapy together with single nucleotide polymorphisms involved in vitamin D metabolism in the context of other known treatment predictors has been performed.In a well characterized prospective cohort of 398 genotype 1 infected patients treated with pegylated interferon-α and ribavirin for 24-72 weeks (INDIV-2 study) 25-OH-vitamin D levels and different single nucleotide polymorphisms were analyzed together with known biochemical parameters for a correlation with virologic treatment outcome.Fluctuations of more than 5 (10) ng/ml in 25-OH-vitamin D-levels have been observed in 66 (39) % of patients during the course of antiviral therapy and neither pretreatment nor under treatment 25-OH-vitamin D-levels were associated with treatment outcome. The DHCR7-TT-polymorphism within the 7-dehydrocholesterol-reductase showed a significant association (P = 0.031) to sustained viral response in univariate analysis. Among numerous further parameters analyzed we found that age (OR = 1.028, CI = 1.002-1.056, P = 0.035), cholesterol (OR = 0.983, CI = 0.975-0.991, P<0.001), ferritin (OR = 1.002, CI = 1.000-1.004, P = 0.033), gGT (OR = 1.467, CI = 1.073-2.006, P = 0.016) and IL28B-genotype (OR = 2.442, CI = 1.271-4.695, P = 0.007) constituted the strongest predictors of treatment response.While 25-OH-vitamin D-levels levels show considerable variations during the long-lasting course of antiviral therapy they do not show any significant association to treatment outcome in genotype 1 infected patients.