I was a non-responder on rebetron interferon ribiviron combo therapy so my doctor took me off of it. He told me I should respond much better to the upcoming peg-therapy that will soon be marketed. I learned however that naive users respond much better than those of us who have tried rebetron. What is the response rate () for those of us who have been on the intitial Rebetron therapy.

thank you

Non responders are the most difficult group of patients to treat.After non response to Rebetron ,less than 10% of the cases respond with re-treatment.I agree with your doctor to stop the drug if you were not responding.The response rate depends of other factors besides if you are naive or not.If you are a genotype 1 ,your chances for response are ddramatically less,with any treatment.Another factor is if the liver shows crrhosis or not.Cirrhotics respond worse.For example,gen 1 ,respond less than 25% with Rebetron, while non 1,over 60%. The data with the pegs-RBV combination till this momment suggests that sustained responses can be achieved in more than 40% in gen.1 ,and higher in non1 for Peg-Intron and RBV.There is a very interesting pilot study with Pegasys- RBV and Pegasys-RBV-Amantadine combinations for non-responders, that suggest even higher responses.(around 60%) If you can wait for treatment for a while,(as most patients can),you should have a better chance of response with these combos.