Abstract: Objective To observe the extremely rapid virologic response（ERVR） in naive patient with chronic hepatitis C with genotype 1 virus infection receiving pegylated interferon and ribavirin treatment. Methods Forty naive hepatitis C patients with genotype 1 infection had baseline serum HCV RNA≥400000 IU/ml and they were treated with peginterferon-alpha-2a at dose of 180 μg per week and ribavirin at dose of 1000-1200 mg/d. After 2 week treatment,they all got so-called extremely rapid virologic response and then,they were randomly divided into two groups,e.g. 20 patients continued the regimen for 36 weeks（group 1） and another 20 patients received the therapy for 48 weeks（group 2）. All patients were followed-up for 24 weeks after discontinuation. Results The end-of-treatment virologic response （ETVR）,sustained virologic response（SVR） and recurrence rate of patients in group one were 100%,90% and 10%,respectively,while they were 95%,90% and 5.3% in group 2. There was no statistical differences between the two groups;There was a negative correlation between baseline serum HCV RNA levels and SVR （OR=0.422,95%CI 0.05-0.29,P=0.007） in the 40 patients;The SVR in patients with baseline serum HCV RNA<6×10⁷IU/ml was higher than that in patients with baseline serum HCV RNA≥6×10⁷IU/ml in group 1（P=0.005）,but not in group 2（P=0.063）. Conclusions The ERVR in naive patients with chronic hepatitis C receiving peginterferon-alpha-2a plus ribavirin treatment suggests relatively less anti-viral regimen and the same efficacy.

Key words: Hepatitis C, Interferon- alpha-2a, Extremely rapid virologic response, Efficacy