I started treatment with pegasys/co-pegasys in January. After one month I was taken off when I reported an increase in heart rate after exercise.

After being off for several weeks I underwent an ekg and stress test. All is normal. Now six weeks later we are going to re-start treatment. Does this break decrease the chances of a SVR?

Are there any other tests that should be done prior to re-starting treatment? Does the alfacon-1 (infergen) provide any greater probability of SVR? I am a 52 year old active male in good condition (other than the HCV and stage 1 fibrosis) no symptoms or elevated enzymes. Type 1b with quantitative pcr 72,000. Any comments or advise would be great.

Thanks

Now that you had a good cardiac evaluation, you should do extremely well. You have a low viral load and that is in your favor. You also have mild liver disease so that is also in your favor. The most important thing to do now is to take all your medications. Adherence to medications has been shown to be very important in increasing your chance of success. Your prior brief course of treatment should not have a negative impact on success whatsoever.

At 12 weeks of treatment you should have a viral load drawn to be certain that your level is now either undetectable or has decreased significantly (by at least two logs). If not, then your chance of obtaining a sustained viral load response would be extremly low.

Remember that adherence counts! Good luck. Dr. McGovern