HLA typing in patients with chronic active hepatitis C

ABSTRACT

Hepatitis C virus infection played the major role in the causation of chronic liver disease in Egypt. Schistosomal patients are considered a high-risk people contributing to hepatitis B, C infection or both. The outcome of hepatitis C virus infection is known to be highly variable and is determined largely by the host immune response, which is in turn restricted by the products encoded by the major histocompatibility complex [MHC]. The principle reasons for discrepancies in the HLA typing results are likely to be disease heterogenecity, racial differences in the distribution of HLA alleles between populations, and in some cases, low number of patients studied. Our present study was carried out on 30 healthy anti-HCV-negative controls, 30 cases of CPH and 30 cases of CAH diagnosed by the presence HCV-RNA by RT-PCR, and liver biopsy detect chronic active and chronic persistent hepatitis. The collected samples were analyzed for LFT, CBC, serum iron, AFP, HLA class I and II. The obtained results were analyzed statistically, and discussed briefly HLA-DR2 antigen was found to be frequently present in patients with CPH while HLA-DR3 antigen was found frequently present in patients with CAH