Hepatic histopathological findings in patie.ts with chronic C hepatitis with or witho•ut autoimmune features

Abstract

The isolation of HCV by Choo et al. (1989) raised the interest for more research to reveal the mystery of this agent which has been long suspected to be the cause of non-A, non­ B hepatitis, and to discover more diagnostic criteria for detecting this virus as well as predicting any of its various complications.

Nowadays HCV is a pandemic disease infecting more than 200 million people around the world with a prevalence rate of 14.5% in Egypt (Koope, 1998).

Chronic hepatitis C has many complications, •for example: fulminant hepatitis, hepatic cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

HCV related chronic liver disease may be associated with various immunological disorders (Pawlotsky et al., 1994).

These immunological disorders include mixed Cryoglobulinemia, systemic vasculitis with purpura, neuropathy, Raynaud's phenomena (Pawlotsky et al., 1994), membranous glomerulonephritis which is associated with glomerular immune complexes containing HCV, anti-HCV, IgG, IgM and Rheumatoid factor (Johnson et al.,1993).

A lymphocytic sialoadenitis, resembling Sjogren's syndrome has been described but without features of sicca