RESUMEN
The aim of this work was to study T-cell function in patients with chronic HCV infection. It included 50 subjects [38 males and 12 females] aged between 23 and 42 years old [mean age 30.97 +/- 4.48 years] divided into two main categories. The first category included 40 subjects with chronic HCV infection and further subdivided into four groups [ten patients each] according to the type of treatment received: Group 1 had a long-term remission after interferon treatment, group 2 was on a nonspecific treatment, group 3 did not receive any treatment and group 4 was resistant to interferon treatment. The second category was composed of only one group of ten normal control subjects. All studied subjects were free from all other hepatitis viruses [A, B and D viruses], were not diabetic and did not receive any immunosuppressive drugs either before, during or after the study. All subjects in the different groups were subjected to an immunological profile study which was based on the assays of peripheral blood mononuclear cell [pBMC] including total B-and T- cells, CD4, CD8, NK-cells and CD69 by flow cytometry using monoclonal antibodies. The result of this work revealed no significant statistical difference between the five studied groups. This may be attributed to different CD4 T-cell subsets, termed Th1 that may be activated in individual patient and an efficient virus control or elimination may depend upon an appropriate lymphokine profile of HCV specific CD4 T-lymphocyte