No intention of shooting the messenger. However, please keep in mind
that this study lumped all groups of "occult" HCV together. There are
just two paragraph that pertain to the subgroup of sustained responders:

"Occult HCV infection has also been identified in a similar cohort of
patients: those with chronic hepatitis C who have responded to an
antiviral therapy with loss of circulating HCV-RNA and normalization of
ALT levels. Several papers have reported the presence of an occult HCV
infection (persistence of HCV-RNA) in the liver and in PBMC of sustained
responders[22-24]. However, other authors have not found viral RNA in
these patients[25,26]. These discrepancies could be due to different
preservation methods of the liver biopsies, to differences in the
sensitivity of the methods employed for HCV-RNA detection, different
geographical incidence, etc. Thus, further studies are needed to know
the real prevalence of occult HCV in complete responder patients. One of
the possible consequences of occult HCV infection is the persistence of
liver necroinflammation in an important number of sustained responder
patients[23,24].
 The case of a patient with chronic hepatitis C who cleared serum
HCV-RNA with normalization of ALT levels in whom HCV infection
reactivated following prednisone therapy after 8.5 years of HCV-RNA
negativity has been published. Thus, occult HCV infection should be
taken into account when these anti-HCV positive patients with normal ALT
levels undergo immunosuppressive therapies[25]."

The references 23 and 24 are indeed disturbing (clickable pointers to
all references are in the original article). But both looked at a very
small sample. Reference 25 OTOH looked at 400 patients with SVR, and
found viral persistence in just 2%. How those numbers can be reconciled
is a big question.

But again, all this information must be viewed in the context of
long-term mortality studies on SVR (and even "transient responder")
patients. There aren't that many, but one is here:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/72513868/ABSTRACT

"This study included 594 patients with chronic hepatitis C who received
interferon- therapy (Interferon group) and 144 patients with chronic
hepatitis C who did not receive interferon (Control group). The patients
in the Interferon group were classified into the following three groups
based on the response of the serum aminotransaminase level of the
patient during and after completion of the therapy protocol: sustained
responders (n = 175), transient responders (n = 165), and non-responders
(n = 254).

[Note: this was interferon monotherapy, hence the low success rates.
More modern therapies could possibly also contribute to more persistent
viral elimination.]

[...] Multivariate analysis showed that interferon therapy decreased the
risk for developing HCC by 48% compared with that in the Control group
[...] No sustained responder or transient responder in the Interferon
group died of liver-related disease. The cumulative survival rates of
the Interferon and Control groups were nearly identical during the first
5 years following diagnosis. Thereafter, the cumulative survival rate of
the Control group declined, resulting in an 8-year survival rate in the
Interferon and Control groups of 97% and 81%, respectively [...] Our
study demonstrated that interferon therapy significantly lowered the
incidence of HCC among patients with chronic hepatitis C who showed
sustained normalization and among patients who showed transient
normalization of the serum aminotransferase level after completion of
interferon therapy. The survival analyses and determination of cause of
death suggested that interferon therapy improves the long-term survival
of chronic hepatitis C patients who respond to this therapy, possibly by
decreasing mortality from liver-related diseases."

Sounds pretty good to me...

Thomas