The decrease in quality of life with combination therapy was twice as great as that with interferon alone. Quality of life decreased by 24% for 1 month (or 1 week) for patients undergoing an elective abortion for an unplanned pregnancy during ribavirin treatment.
The following assumptions were also made:
sexual partners of women would utilise contraception with condoms, continuing for six months after discontinuation of ribavirin;
all men in the trial had partners who were potentially of child-bearing age and who would not have been using contraception otherwise;
patients who relapsed after initial interferon treatment had a prognosis similar to those who had never been treated;
and patients who became viral-negative either spontaneously or from retreatment had a greatly reduced likelihood of developing progressive liver disease compared with those who were not treated.