Characteristics of the twenty HCV chronic patients longitudinally followed during treatment course.

alog10 IU/ml. bBy trypan blue count; visits during and following treatment. cFrequencies are total cytokine-producing (IFN-γ, IL-2, TNFα) and degranulating (CD107a+) cells out of the CD8+ memory subset at pre-treatment. All positive responses to HCV pools were summed to determine the total antigen-specific response within the memory peripheral blood T cell populations. Due to HCV peptide reagent availability, only genotype 1 patients could be stimulated. ND: not determined. dNumber of HCV proteins detected by CD8+ T cells.