Figure 4

The effect of the change in interferon efficacy after the dose reduction (x-axis) for the patients in group 2 is related to the change in slope of the second phase viral decline (open circles: second phase slope before dose reduction; horizontal lines: second phase slope after dose reduction). In 4 patients the slope of the second phase reduces drastically, note that 3/4 of these patients have the largest reduction in interferon efficacy. The dashed line reflects the threshold of 0.13 days^-1 below which no sustained response was observed.