[Thyroid autoimmunity disorders in patients with chronic hepatitis C, before Interferon therapy]

ABSTRACT

Several researchers believe that thyroid autoimmunity is more prevalent in patients with hepatitis C than in the general population, however this is still a controversial issue. The aim of the current study was to determine 1] the frequency of thyroid autoantibodies, 2] the frequency of thyroid dysfunction, 3] correlation of thyroid autoantibodies and dysfunction with demographic and clinical variables, in patients with chronic hepatitis C. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 250 patients with chronic hepatitis C; patients were selected by simple non sampling from patients referring to the Tehran Hepatitis Center in 2003 and 2004. Demographic data [age, sex, educational level, job] and clinical variables [including risk factors, liver enzymes, liver histopathology, HCV RNA viral load], were obtained. Anti Thyronin [TPO Ab, 124], Anti thyroglobulin [TG Ab, n=117], TSH [n=239], T3 [n=242], T4 [n=245], T3RU [n=134] was tested. TPO Ab and TG Ab were seen in 4% and 3.4% respectively. 1.2% had the history of thyroid diorders. 4 subjects had thyrotoxicosis, 1 subject had Hashimoto thyroiditis, 3 subjects had subclinical hyperthyroidisem, and 5 patients had subclinical hypothyroidisem. Positive TPO Ab had a statistical correlation that was marginally significant correlation with cirrhosis, physical symptoms and history of traditional phlebotomy [0.05blood transfusion [0.05thyroid dysfunction. This study reported the relative frequency of thyroid autoantibodies in hepatitis C patients of our country to be 7%, which is in agreement with some previous studies. While this study did report some correlation with antithyroid antibodies and clinical variables in chronic hepatitis C, further studies in this field with a larger sample size is recommended