Therapeutic effectiveness of biosimilar standard interferon versus pegylated interferon for chronic hepatitis C genotypes 2 or 3

background: pegylated interferon (peg-ifn) and standard interferon (ifn) play a significant role in the treatment of hepatitis c virus (hcv) infection. biosimilar standard ifn is widely available in brazil for the treatment of hcv infection genotypes 2 or 3, but its efficacy compared to peg-ifn is unknown. objective: to compare the sustained virological response (svr) rates following treatment with biosimilar standard ifn plus ribavirin (rbv) versus peg-ifn plus rbv in patients with hcv genotypes 2 or 3 infection. methods: a retrospective cohort study was conducted in patients with hcv genotypes 2 or 3 infection treated with biosimilar standard ifn plus rbv or with peg-ifn plus rbv. svr rates of the two treatments were compared. results: from january 2005 to december 2010, 172 patients with a mean age of 44 +/- 9.3 years were included. there were eight (4.7%) patients with hcv genotype 2 infections. one hundred fourteen (66.3%) were treated with biosimilar standard ifn plus rbv, whist 58 (33.7%) patients were treated with peg-ifn plus rbv. between the two groups, there were no significant differences regarding age, gender, glucose level, platelet count, hepatic necroinflammatory grade, and hepatic fibrosis stage. overall, 59.3% (102/172) patients had svr. in patients treated with peg-ifn plus rbv, 79.3% (46/58) had svr compared to 49.1% (56/114) among those treated with biosimilar standard ifn plus rbv (p = 0.0001). conclusion: in patients with hcv genotypes 2 or 3 infection, a higher svr was observed in patients receiving peg-ifn plus rbv related to patients treated with biosimilar standard ifn plus rbv.