Despite the appearance of new oral
antiviral drugs, pegylated
interferon (PEG-IFN)/RBV may remain the standard of care
therapy for some time, and several viral and host factors are reported to be correlated with
therapeutic effects. This study aimed to reveal the independent variables associated with failure of sustained virological response (SVR) to
PEG-IFN alpha-2a versus PEG-IFN alpha-2b in treatment of naive
chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) Egyptian patients using both statistical methods and data mining techniques. This retrospective cohort study included 3,235
chronic hepatitis C patients enrolled in a large Egyptian medical center: 1,728 patients had been treated with
PEG-IFN alpha-2a plus
ribavirin (RBV) and 1,507 patients with PEG-IFN alpha-2b plus RBV between 2007 and 2011. Both multivariate analysis and Reduced Error Pruning Tree (REPTree)-based model were used to reveal the independent variables associated with treatment response. In both treatment types,
alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) >10 ng/mL and HCV
viremia >600 × 10(3) IU/mL were the independent baseline variables associated with failure of SVR, while male gender, decreased
hemoglobin, and
thyroid-stimulating hormone were the independent variables associated with good response (P < 0.05). Using REPTree-based model showed that low AFP was the factor of initial split (best predictor) of response for either
PEG-IFN alpha-2a or PEG-IFN alpha-2b (cutoff value 8.53, 4.89 ng/mL, AUROC = 0.68 and 0.61, P = 0.05). Serum AFP >10 ng/mL and viral load >600 × 10(3) IU/mL are variables associated with failure of response in both treatment types. REPTree-based model could be used to assess predictors of response.