Article abstract The current standard of care for the initial treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is combination therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin. This treatment regimen has shown considerable success in patients infected with HCV genotypes 2 and 3, whereas viral eradication is obtained in only 50% of treatment-naive patients with genotype 1 infection. Therefore, there are numerous patients who fail to respond to pegylated interferon plus ribavirin combination therapy. In recent years, to improve the efficacy of antiviral therapy in both naive and non-naive patients, different studies have evaluated the possibility of tailoring the duration of antiviral therapy according to baseline factors as well as to the virological response during antiviral therapy. This review summarizes the evidence supporting a reduction or a prolongation of antiviral therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C according to viral genotype and the patient’s status as either naive, relapser or non-responder.