Monocyte-derived dendritic cells in children with chronic hepatitis C: correlation with interferon and ribavirin therapy.

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major health problem worldwide. Defective dendritic cell (DC) activation of T cells may underlie poor T-cell responsiveness in HCV infection.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the DCs' functions in chronically infected HCV patients and its correlation with the response to therapy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: This prospective study included 30 chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients and 30 healthy age-matched and sex-matched controls. The first group received combined pegylated interferon-α-2b (Peg-IFN-α2b)/ribavirin therapy for 48 weeks. A quantitative HCV-RNA PCR was performed for all patients before treatment and at 12, 24, 48, and 24 weeks after treatment. To clarify the functions of DCs, we induced maturation of peripheral DCs from blood samples of CHC patients and healthy controls using Resiquimod (R848). The functions of DCs were assessed by measurement of the levels of IFN-γ and interleukin-10 (IL-10).

RESULTS: Sixteen (53.3%) of the patients were treatment responders and the other 14 (46.4%) were nonresponders. The current study showed a statistically significant difference between CHC patients and the control group in IFN-γ production, which was higher in the control group (1.53±0.38 IU/ml) than in the CHC patients (1.19±0.21 IU/ml); in contrast, IL-10 was higher in CHC (249.4±27.6 pg/ml) than the control group (217.0±29.9 pg/ml). However, there was no significant difference between treatment responders and nonresponders in both IFN-γ and IL-10 levels.

CONCLUSION: HCV infection is associated with impaired production of IFN-γ, which may be an indication of a defect in DC function.