Hepatitis C virus genotypes in France: relationship with epidemiology, pathogenicity and response to interferon therapy

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the following in a large population of French patients with chronic hepatitis C: the geographical distribution of hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes; the relationship between HCV genotypes and epidemiological characteristics; severity of the disease; and response to interferon (IFN) therapy. Data from 14 tertiary referral centres, corresponding to 1872 patients with chronic hepatitis C, were prospectively collected from 1989 to 1997. HCV genotyping was performed using the line probe assay (LiPA). HCV genotypes 1b, 3, 1a, 2, 4 and a mixed infection were found in 41%, 22%, 16%, 11%, 4% and 4% of our population, respectively. HCV genotype distribution was homogeneous, except for genotype 2 that was found more frequently in the southwest than in the other regions (21% vs 9.2%) (P=0.001). HCV distribution was associated with gender, age, and source and duration of infection. In multivariate analysis, these correlations were related to the source of infection, which was the only independent factor significantly associated with genotype (P=0.001). Genotype 1b was significantly more common in patients with cirrhosis, but in multivariate analysis cirrhosis was independently related to older age at exposure and longer duration of infection (P=0.001). A sustained response to IFN therapy was observed in 11% of patients infected with genotypes 1a or 1b vs 32% of those infected with genotypes 2 or 3 (P=0.001). This study shows that HCV genotype is mainly related to the source infection, but not to the intrinsic pathogenicity of HCV, and is a strong predictor of sustained response to therapy.

Epidemiologic Study of Hepatitis C Virus Transmission in Lorestan Province (2011-14)

“…The Genotype 3a was the predominant genotype in this study, which is in line with the findings of studies conducted in India, Pakistan and Nepal (13,14). However, these findings are inconsistent with the results of studies in Saudi Arabia (15), Kuwait (16), France (17), North American countries (18) and South Korea (19). This difference could be due to high prevalence of intravenous drug abuse in the present study (48.33%) because numerous molecular epidemiological studies suggest an association between genotype 3a transmission and history of intravenous drug abuse (13,16,20).…”

Factors influencing a low rate of hepatitis C viral RNA clearance in heroin users from Southern China

“…HCV g enotype 1 has been considered a more aggressive genotype, associated with lower clearance rates, decreased susceptibility to current treatments [32][33][34] and in a few cases, associated with a faster progression of HIV disease [51] . Many HCV cohort studies, including the ALIVE cohort in Baltimore are primarily genotype 1 infections [3] .…”

“…Other factors such as younger age [3,20] , female gender [21,22] , presence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) [3,23] , certain HLA alleles [6,[24][25][26][27][28][29] , and low viral quasispecies diversity [30] have been linked to increased HCV RNA clearance. While African American ethnicity [3,25] , HCV genotype 1 [31][32][33] and co-infections with human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) [3] , Human T-Lymphotropic Virus-1 [34] and Schistosoma mansoni [35] have been associated with lower HCV RNA clearance and higher HCV RNA levels. Understanding why and how individuals clear HCV is the key to developing new drugs and an effective vaccine [21] .…”

“…The ages found in our cohort are much younger than previous HCV studies where HCV RNA clearance rates were less than 15% [3,20] . We attempted to address whether our high levels of HCV RNA persistence were due to the length and frequency of drug use, but these factors proved nonsignificant.HCV g enotype 1 has been considered a more aggressive genotype, associated with lower clearance rates, decreased susceptibility to current treatments [32][33][34] and in a few cases, associated with a faster progression of HIV disease [51] . Many HCV cohort studies, including the ALIVE cohort in Baltimore are primarily genotype 1 infections [3] .…”

Clinical Profile and Response to Treatment with Pegylated Interferon α 2b and Ribavirin in Chronic Hepatitis C—A Reappraisal from a Tertiary Care Center in Northern India

“…In most of the studies, genotype 3 was overall more common in Northern, eastern and Western parts of India, but patients from South India are predominantly infected with genotype 1. [11][12][13][14][15] In contrast, most of the studies from USA, Europe and Japan have reported a prevalence rate of 60%-70% of genotype 1b and 1a in patients with CH-C. 16 HCV treatment responses vary with the genotype, with the highest SVR rates observed for genotype 2, 3 (72-80%) and the lowest rates observed for genotypes 1 and 4 (44-50%). 13,[17][18][19] Our study population also showed similar results as genotype 1 (20%) had significantly low SVR as compared to genotype 3/2 (92.0%).…”