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Early studies suggested that nitazoxanide (a thiazolide anti-infective agent) monotherapy produced sustained virologic responses in patients with genotype 4 hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection (Aliment Pharmacol Ther 2008; 28:574). Now, investigators in Egypt have evaluated the efficacy of nitazoxanide as cotherapy in these patients.
In the industry-supported, unblinded, multicenter, phase II trial, investigators randomized 96 treatment-naive HCV-positive patients to standard therapy (peginterferon alfa-2a [PEG-IFN] 180 µg weekly plus weight-based ribavirin 1000 mg or 1200 mg daily for 48 weeks), dual therapy (nitazoxanide 500 mg lead-in therapy twice daily for 12 weeks followed by PEG-IFN 180 µg weekly plus nitazoxanide 500 mg twice daily for…