At months 10-12 , while among the entire patient population there was no difference in the corticosteroid dose or immunosuppression use between the treatment groups ( adjusted OR 1.04 , 95 % CI 0.34 to 3.19 ) , post hoc analysis revealed that in patients who were on corticosteroids at baseline the corticosteroid requirement was significantly lower in the peginterferon -- 2b ( 6.5 ( 5-15 ) mg/day ) compared with the non-interferon group ( 10 ( 8.25-16 .5 ) mg/day , p = 0.039 ) .