Immunological disorders in chronic hepatitis C Egyptian patients

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of different autoimmune antibodies in cases of hepatitis C chronic liver disease and to assess whether such changes have any clinical significance or not. A total of thirty chronic hepatitis C patients [22 males and 8 females, with a mean age of 43.5 +/- 6.7 years] who were ELISA II positive and HbsAg negative with elevated ALT more than two folds of the normal in addition to 20 healthy controls of matched age and sex were tested for rheumatoid factor, cryoglobulin, antinuclear antibody, antismooth muscle antibody, antimitochondrial antibody and LKM1. It could be concluded that chronic hepatitis C patients showed prevalence of some autoimmune antibodies without any implication on the clinical presentation