1167 IL-28 GENE VARIATION PREDICTS WHO WILL RESPOND TO INTERFERON-BASED TREATMENT OF CHRONIC HEPATITIS C IN A FRENCH COHORT

Background: Recent data suggest that host genetics may be useful for the prediction of drug response and support the investigation of the role of IL-28B in the treatment of HCV.-1 patient.Single-position variations in the gene region encoding interleukin 28: single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs8099917 (IL-28, also known as interferon lambda) may help predict individuals that are likely to respond to treatment for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection using pegylated interferon plus ribavirin.Aim: To look for genetic associations with treatment response in a group of French patients with chronic hepatitis C from different genotypes.Methods: 157 patients (119 HCV-genotypes 1-4, and 38 HCVgenotypes 2-3) treated with pegylated interferon/ribavirin were included in this study.Among these, 56% of the genotypes 1-4 had sustained virological response (SVR), compared with 76% of genotypes 2-3.Seven SNPs (rs8105790, rs11881222, rs8103142, rs28416813, rs4803219, rs8099917, and rs7248668) in the IL-28B were analyzed in order to find any associations with treatment response.We searched for determinants of SVR as a primary endpoints by logistic regression including age, genotype, HCV viral load, sex, and SNP polymorphisms.Results: SNP rs8099917 (alleles T/G) was strongly associated with SVR only in HCV-1 patients (p = 0.02).The TT genotype for that SNP was associated with a 1.4-fold increase in SVR relative to TG genotype.In a multivariate regression model, TT genotype for SNP rs8099917 and HCV-genotypes 2-3 were significantly associated with SVR (OR 2.05 p = 0.03, and OR 2.38 p = 0.05; respectively.Conclusions: Our study confirm the interest of the rs8099917 (TT genotype) polymorphism in predicting the SVR.These analyses done in different genotypes offer the possibility that a pretreatment screening test might be developed.Such a test could be combined with the host and virus characteristics to more reliably predict who will respond to therapy.