Soluble CD26/30 levels before and after treatment with interferon-alpha and ribavirin combination therapy in a pediatric hepatitis C patient.

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection frequently leads to end-stage liver diseases and extrahepatic complications. Combination therapy with interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) and ribavirin is now recommended as the first-line therapy for patients with chronic hepatitis C in adults. However, the benefit of such combination therapy in children with hepatitis C is still under investigation. We report here on a 6-year-old boy admitted with chronic active hepatitis C infection and treated with interferon-alpha and ribavirin. After treatment for 12 months, his serum showed negative HCV RNA, and normal alanine aminotransferase, and there was a sustained response. The patient's serum soluble CD30 (sCD30) level was higher than that of controls (>100 U/mL vs 46 +/- 11 U/mL) before combination therapy but there was no difference in soluble CD26 (sCD26) [103 ng/mL vs 119 +/- 28 ng/mL]. The sCD30 decreased and sCD26 increased at 6 months (45 U/mL and 188.3 ng/mL, respectively) using combined therapy as well as at 4 months after discontinuing it (33 U/mL and 167.8 ng/mL, respectively) in our patient. The results indicate that combined treatment with IFN-alpha and ribavirin may be used as the first-line treatment for children with chronic hepatitis C. The changes of sCD30 and sCD26 may be helpful in estimating of HCV infection activity.