Background: Because of the current lack of direct antiviral drugs, improvement of HCV G3 treatment can be achieved only by optimization of dual therapy. Preliminary data suggest lower SVR rates for G3 infected elder patients. We therefore aimed to identify the contributing factors.

Background: It has been shown that anemia and the hemoglobin (Hb) decline during Peg2b/RBV treatment of genotype 1 (G1) infection predict favorable SVR rates (Sulkowski M, Gastroenterology 2010). However, approximately 50% of the patients with anemia received erythropoietin, which may have confounded the association between Hb decline and SVR. We here investigated whether the association between Hb decline and SVR can be confirmed for patients treated for HCV G1 and for HCV G2/3 infection in real-life without erythropoietin treatment for anemia.

Background: Only few data are available on adherence to combination HCV therapy with pegylated interferon (PegIFN)/ribavirin (RBV) in real-world settings, despite its acknowledged importance. Such information might help clinicians to improve adherence and thereby virologic response to PegIFN/RBV therapy, also in combination with new antivirals.