Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a serious problem for dialysis patients. Chronic liver disease with symptoms of active hepatitis is a contraindication for renal transplantation as the
disease may progress after transplantation. In addition, treatment of HCV infection after kidney transplantation may increase the risk of graft rejection. Therefore, it is necessary to consider an effective antiviral therapy before transplantation. Optimal dose and time of treatment of peritoneal dialysis patients has not been established.Case Report: 35-year-old woman with chronic renal failure has been treated by continuous cyclic peritoneal dialysis (CCPD). She was planned to be put on the waiting list for renal transplantation. Due to HCV infection interferon-?2a was given as monotherapy at a dose of 6 million units (MU) thrice weekly subcutaneously for five months. After this time reduction of dosage was required because of side effects. Interferon-?2b was administrated as a continuation of therapy at a dose of 3 MU thrice weekly for five consecutive months. The patient became HCV-RNA-PCR negative within 10 months from starting therapy. Fourteen months after cessation of interferon therapy she has still undetectable serum HCV-RNA.Conclusions: This case report documents that administration of IFN-? at 6 MU three times a week for 5 months followed by reduced dose to 50 % for the same time in CCPD patient with hepatitis C was efficient for clearing the serum of HCV-RNA. However, the optimal dose and duration of interferon monotherapy in CCPD patients need to be studied further in a clinical trial on a larger population of patients.

Keywords: HCV infection, Peritoneal Dialysis, Interferon-alpha, Interferon-α