Background and Objective: Infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an endemic public health problem with long-term consequences, especially in Egypt. Egypt has one of the highest incidence rates of HCV worldwide. The current cross-sectional study aims to determine how prevalent occult HCV infection is and how it affects the individual's immune response. Methods: The studied adult patient...

BACKGROUND Symmetric polyarthritis associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection frequently displays a clinical picture like rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Antibodies to cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) have high specificity for the diagnosis of RA. This study examined the frequency and clinical significance of anti-CCP antibodies in patients with chronic HCV infection, with and without manif...

materials and methods a case-control study was designed on 91 cases with spontaneous hcv infection clearance and 259 patients with persistent hcv infection as the control group. the rs12979860 snp was assessed as the most common ifnl polymorphism by pcr-rflp method. results distribution of rs12979860 cc genotype in the spontaneous clearance group was around two folds of its distribution in chro...

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been dubbed the “silent epidemic” because the infection remains quiescent for years, even decades, before clinically significant symptoms appear. The majority of Americans currently living with chronic HCV infection were infected before testing for the virus in blood products began in the early 1990s; therefore, an “age wave” of HCV infection compli...

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been recognized as a major cause of chronic liver diseases worldwide. It has been suggested that HCV infects not only hepatocytes but also mononuclear lymphocytes including B cells that express the CD81 molecule, a putative HCV receptor. HCV infection of B cells is the likely cause of B-cell dysregulation disorders such as mixed cryoglobulinemia, rheumatoid factor pr...

Although hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the most common chronic blood-bome infection in the United States, the annual incidence of new infections has decreased by more than 80% since 1989 to approximately 36,000 new infections by 1996. The Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) revealed that an estimated 3.9 million US citizens (1.8%) have been infected with H...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS To investigate the relationship between lipid profiles and diabetes with past and chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among village residents of Egypt. PATIENTS AND METHODS Fasting lipids and glucose profiles were compared among adults never infected with HCV (negative HCV antibodies), infected in the past (positive HCV antibodies and negative HCV RNA) and chronicall...

BACKGROUND It has been suggested that chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is associated with diabetes. The aim of this study was to establish a potential relationship between chronic HCV infection and diabetes mellitus in Korean patients. METHODS We performed a prospective analysis of 404 patients with chronic viral hepatitis or liver cirrhosis who visited our hospital and analyzed whet...

Viruses must continually adapt against dynamic innate and adaptive responses of the host immune system to establish chronic infection. Only a small minority (~20%) of those exposed to hepatitis C virus (HCV) spontaneously clear infection, leaving approximately 200 million people worldwide chronically infected with HCV. A number of recent research studies suggest that establishment and maintenan...

Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the main causes of hepatocellular carcinoma. However, the molecular mechanisms linking the infection to cancer development remain poorly understood. Here we used HCV-infected cells and liver biopsies to study how HCV modulates the glutaminolysis pathway, which is known to play an important role in cellular energetics, stress defense, and ...