Monitoring and Stratification of Renal Functions in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection: An Immunohistochemical Study

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects more than 170 million people worldwide and around 20% of blood donors are seropositive by ELIZA to HCV Ab in Egypt. Renal manifestations may be the presenting features of chronic HCV infection. This work was carried out on 200 patients with chronic HCV in order to study the relationship between HCV and chronic kidney Disease and to stratify HCV patients according to the degree of albuminuria and to know the histopathological changes in kidney and liver by immunohistochemical study. It showed that screening for proteinuria in patients with chronic HCV is necessary due to high prevalence of renal affection in these patients. Assessment of microalbuminuria should be done in these patients as an early indicator for renal affection. Albumin creatinine ratio (ACR) had a good reliability as a surrogate measure for routine screening of urine albumin excretion. Awareness of chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage in patients with HCV and renal affection help prediction and early management of renal disease. There was a documented link between cryoglobulinemic and non-cryoglobulinemic membrano-proliferative glomerulonephritis and HCV infection.