Background: This study aimed to develop a model for the pre-treatment prediction of sustained virological response (SVR) to peg-interferon plus ribavirin therapy in chronic hepatitis C.
Methods: Data from 800 genotype 1b chronic hepatitis C patients with high viral load (>100,000 IU/ml) treated by peg-interferon plus ribavirin at 6 hospitals in Japan were randomly assigned to a model building (n = 506) or an internal validation (n = 294). Data from 524 patients treated at 29 hospitals in Japan were used for an external validation. Factors predictive of SVR were explored using data mining analysis.
Results: Age (<50 years), alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) (<8 ng/mL), platelet count (≥ 120 × 10(9)/l), gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) (<40 IU/l), and male gender were used to build the decision tree model, which divided patients into 7 subgroups with variable rates of SVR ranging from 22 to 77%. The reproducibility of the model was confirmed by the internal and external validation (r (2) = 0.92 and 0.93, respectively). When reconstructed into 3 groups, the rate of SVR was 75% for the high probability group, 44% for the intermediate probability group and 23% for the low probability group. Poor adherence to drugs lowered the rate of SVR in the low probability group, but not in the high probability group.
Conclusions: A decision tree model that includes age, gender, AFP, platelet counts, and GGT is useful for predicting the probability of response to therapy with peg-interferon plus ribavirin and has the potential to support clinical decisions regarding the selection of patients for therapy.