FRIDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- Vitamin B₁₂ supplementation significantly improves the rate of sustained viral response (SVR) to pegylated interferon-α and ribavirin in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection naive to antiviral therapy, according to a study published online July 17 in Gut.

To examine the effect of vitamin B₁₂ supplementation on virologic response, Alba Rocco, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Naples Federico II in Italy, and colleagues randomly assigned 94 treatment-naive patients with chronic HCV infection to receive pegylated interferon-alpha; plus ribavirin (standard-of-care; SOC) or SOC plus vitamin B₁₂ (SOC + B₁₂). Viral response (undetectable serum HCV-RNA) was evaluated at four weeks (rapid viral response), 12 weeks (complete early viral response), and 24 or 48 weeks after starting treatment (end-of-treatment viral response), and 24 weeks after the end of treatment (SVR).

The researchers observed no difference between the groups in the rapid viral response. However, for SOC + B₁₂ patients, the rates of complete early viral response, end-of-treatment viral response, and SVR were significantly higher than in SOC patients. The SVR rate was also significantly higher among SOC + B₁₂ patients who were carriers of a difficult-to-treat genotype and in patients with a high baseline viral load. Easy-to-treat HCV genotype and vitamin B₁₂ supplementation were independently associated with SVR in multivariate analysis.

"In conclusion, vitamin B₁₂ supplementation significantly improves the rates of SVR in HCV-infected patients naive to antiviral therapy, particularly those infected with genotype 1 and a high baseline viral load," the authors write.

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