Genetic variants of the inosine triphosphate pyrophosphatase gene (ITPA), resulting in decreased enzymatic activity of the corresponding enzyme, ITPase, are known to correlate with a decreased risk of ribavirin-induced anemia, but are also associated with an increased SVR in patients treated with peginterferon-alpha and ribavirin. As both ITPase and ribavirin are involved in the nucleotide salvage pathway and reduced risk of relapse after treatment of hepatitis C, we have investigated the effect of ITPase activity and ribavirin treatment of HCVcc infection of hepatocytes