Zinc supplementation enhances the response to interferon therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C

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Journal of Viral Hepatitis 8 (5), 367-371

© Blackwell Science Ltd

Zinc supplementation enhances the response to

interferon therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis

C

Takagi, Nagamine, Abe, Takayama, Sato, Otsuka,

Kakizaki, Hashimoto, Matsumoto, Kojima, Takezawa,

Suzuki, Sato and Mori

1 The First Department of Internal Medicine, Gunma

University School of Medicine, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan2

Department of Nursing, Gunma University, Faculty of

Medicine, School of Health Science, Maebashi, Gunma,

Japan3 Department of Laboratory Science, Gunma

University, Faculty of Medicine, School of Health

Science, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan4 Vice President of

Iwate Medical University, Morioka, Japan

We evaluated the synergistic effect of zinc

supplementation on the response to interferon (IFN)

therapy in patients with intractable chronic hepatitis

C in a pilot study using natural IFN-a with or without

zinc. No clinical differences were observed between

patients treated with IFN alone (n=40) and IFN with

polaprezinc (IFN + Zn, n=35). All patients were

positive for HCV genotype Ib and had more than 105

copies of the virus/mL serum. Ten million units of

natural IFN-a was administered daily for 4 weeks

followed by the same dose every other day for 20

weeks. In the IFN + Zn group, patients received an

additional dose of 150 mg/day polaprezinc orally

throughout the 24-week IFN course. No additional

side-effects of polaprezinc were noted but four out of

40 IFN alone treatment and three out of 35 IFN + Zn

group withdrew because of side-effects. Complete

response (CR) was defined as negative HCV RNA in the

serum on PCR and normal aminotransferase level 6

months after therapy. Incomplete response (IR) was

normal liver enzyme and positive serum HCV RNA. Both

of them were evaluated at the 6 months after the

completion of the treatment. Patients with higher

levels of serum HCV (more than 5 × 105 copies/mL) had

little response in both treatment groups. Patients

with moderate amount of HCV (105 to 4.99 × 105/mL)

showed high response rates in combination group (CR:

11/27, 40.7%; CR + IR 15/27, 64.3%), better than IFN

alone (CR: 2/15, 18.2%; CR + IR: 2/15, 18.2%). Serum

zinc levels were higher in patients with IFN + Zn

group than in the IFN group. Our results indicate that

zinc supplementation enhances the response to

interferon therapy in patients with intractable

chronic hepatitis C.

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