Clinical relevance of antibodies to interferon in hepatitis C patients

Interferons represent the most important therapeutic agents in some infectious diseases such as chronic hepatitis C. The use of interferons at clinically effective dosage is however often associated with a number of adverse effects among which there is the development of antibodies able to neutralize its antiviral activity. After several years of research on this topic, it is now widely accepted that the presence of circulating antibodies to interferon may affect its therapeutic efficacy when used to treat hepatitis patients. Indeed, antibodies development may be clinically significant depending on the titre and the time of appearance.