Scientists have discovered a gene that interferes with the
clearance of hepatitis C virus infection. They also identified an inherited
variant within this gene, Interferon Lambda 4 (IFNL4), that predicts how people
respond to treatment for hepatitis C infection. The results of this study, by
investigators at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the NIH, and
their collaborators at NIH and other institutions, were published online in
Nature Genetics on Jan. 6, 2013.
Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus is a cause of liver
cirrhosis and liver cancer. Up to 80 percent of people who are acutely infected
with hepatitis C fail to clear the virus and develop chronic hepatitis C
infection, and of these, approximately 5 percent develop liver cancer.
Individuals of African ancestry do not respond as well to current treatments of
hepatitis C infection compared to patients of European or Asian ancestry.