In contrast, Di Marco et al. [26] evaluated another distinct group of patients with thalassaemia infected with HCV and found that the CT and TT genotypes of the rs12979860 polymorphism and the TG and GG genotypes of the rs8099917 polymorphism were associated

with severe liver fibrosis, regardless of liver iron concentration. Unlike our study, other authors reported that the presence of the C allele at SNP rs12979860 is associated with a higher baseline viral load, which otherwise is an established negative predictor of viral response [13, 15]. Overall, the frequency Napabucasin clinical trial of the CC and TT genotypes of the SNPs rs12979860 and SNP rs8099917, respectively, was similar to that recorded in large population surveys mainly conducted in Western countries [12-15]. In our cohort, we only studied SNPs rs12979860 and rs8099917, as they were reported to be the most important determinant of treatment response. We cannot rule out the possibility that other buy ZD1839 SNPs near IL28B could turn to be more clinically significant

in our very unique population. The observation of a significantly higher proportion of the CC haplotype and C-allele frequency in haemophiliacs emigrating from the Asian Republics of the former USSR than in those emigrating from European Russia is intriguing. Indeed, those patients originating from the Asian Republics have a relatively high C-allele frequency, comparable with the frequency reported by Ge et al. [13] in East Asians, whereas in our haemophiliac population of other ethnic groups, the C-allele frequency was in the range found in European–Americans and in Hispanics. In a large survey of many ethnic groups from all over the globe, Thomas et al. [12] found a much higher C-allele frequency in the European Russian population compared with other populations (60–65%). Nevertheless, the C-allele frequency in this report was also medchemexpress higher than in many other groups, e.g. between 90% and 100% in the

East Asian population. Our findings may be due merely to chance; however, they may reflect a pattern found in the larger non-haemophiliac population. This variability in the proportion of CC haplotype patients unfortunately did not translate into better outcomes for HCV-infected haemophiliac patients originating from the Asian Republics compared with those individuals immigrating from European Russia. This finding could be attributed to the small patient numbers; nevertheless, McCarthy et al. [15] also found no association between the rs12979860 genotype and treatment response in African–Americans. This observation emphasizes the notion that specific polymorphisms at IL28B may be only partially responsible for the variable spontaneous or treatment-induced clearance of HCV infection. Thus, other as yet unrecognized variables remain to be explored. Polymorphisms in the region of the gene IL28B are associated with HCV clearance, implicating the gene product, IFN-λ3, in the immune response to HCV. IFN-λ3 up-regulates IFN-stimulated genes.