Patients infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) are characterized by a high incidence of chronic infection, which results in chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. The functional impairment of HCV-specific T cells is associated with the evolution of an acute infection to chronic hepatitis. While T cells are the important effector cells in adaptive immunity, natural...

Background: Infection with hepatitis B, C, and delta viruses (HBV/HCV/HDV) caused by mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) is still a serious health problem worldwide. Coinfection HBV/HDV or HCV has been shown to accelerate the progression of chronic HBV infection, resulting in higher mortality. Objectives: The aim this study was evaluate prevalence anti-HCV, anti-HDV, anti-HIV antibodies mothers...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV), a non-cytopathic positive-stranded RNA virus, is one of the most common causes of chronic liver diseases such as chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Upon HCV infection, the majority of patients fail to clear the virus and progress to chronic hepatitis C. Chemokines are small chemotactic cytokines that direct the recruitment of immune cells a...

BACKGROUND Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection causes a substantial health and economic burden in the United States. With the availability of direct-acting antiviral agents, recently approved therapies and those under development, and 1-time birth-cohort screening, the burden of this disease is expected to decrease. OBJECTIVE To predict the effect of new therapies and screening on chron...

Over 70% of individuals acutely infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV) develop chronic infection at significant risk of progressive liver fibrosis and subsequent liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Various viral, host, and environmental factors have been reported to affect the natural history of HCV infection such as chronicity in acute phase and disease progression in chronic phase. R...

Abstract Background and Aims: IP-10 molecule is a new biomarker to predict response to treatment in chronic HCV infection. Also urine IP-10 has been suggested as a biomarker in other infections. But already, it has low data in urine as well as serum level of IP-10 for HCV infection. The aim of this study was to assess urine and serum level of IP-10 in patients with type 1 and 3a HCV infect...

BACKGROUND & AIMS The association between Hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infection and fracture risk is not well characterized. We compared fracture risk between HCV-seropositive (HCV-exposed) patients and the general population and between patients with cleared and chronic HCV-infection. METHODS Outcome measures were time to first fracture at any site, time to first low-energy and first non-low-ene...

OBJECTIVE Chemokine receptor and its ligand participate in viral immunity and HCV infection, which are important inflammatory mediators. The current study showed the different roles of Th cell secreted chemokines CXCR3, CCR5 and CCR6 in chronic liver inflammation after HCV infection. As one important chemokine receptor, the role of polypeptide property and ligand level in HCV prognosis is still...