Public release date: 29-Aug-2007

Twenty to fifty percent of HCV infected patients recovers spontaneously. The hepatitis C patients and their relatives like to know if his/her infection would fall into the category for self recovery.

A research article to be published on August 21 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The research team led by Dr. Mihm from Georg-August-Universität spent more than 8 years working with a cohort of 67 patients who spontaneously recovered from HCV infection. In addition to these, the researchers included a similar number of patients with chronic HCV infection. Large sample size allowed these investigators to obtain results with great statistical significance, and to draw very reliable conclusions.

One conclusion reported by the investigators is, patients who self recovered usually have lower levels of HCV antibody. Thus patients with lower HCV antibody titer may have a brighter clinical outcome. However, for a practical standard to be established to define a low HCV antibody titer, more effort is needed by investigators in the future.

Another interesting conclusion reached by these investigators is, co-infection by hepatitis B virus (HBV) is associated with a higher possibility of self recovery. The investigators suggested that the infection of HBV interferes with the HCV replication, which would finally lead to virus eradiacation.. HCV patients co-infected by hepatitis A virus also have a better chance of self recovery, possibly by a similar mechanism.

Ralph’s Note- The next step will be to see if those vaccinated against Hep A and Hep B become infected with Hep C more often.