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Amro M Hassan,1 Heba A Osman,2 Hasan S Mahmoud,2 Mohammed H Hassan,3 Abdel-Kader A Hashim,4 Hesham H Ameen5 1Tropical Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University (Assiut Branch), Assiut, Egypt; 2Tropical Medicine and Gastroenterology Department, Faculty of Medicine, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt; 3Department of Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt; 4Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt; 5Clinical Pathology Department, Faculty of Medicine Al-Azhar University (Assiut Branch), Assiut, Egypt Background and aims: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is associated with extrahepatic manifestations such as cryoglobulinemia and accounts for up to 90% of all cases of mixed cryoglobulinemia (MC). The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of sofosbuvir–daclatasvir therapy on symptomatic HCV-related MC and sustained virologic response (SVR) achievement. Patients and methods: This prospective cohort study was carried out on 120 patients with chronic HCV infection, clinically suspected to have MC, but only 63 of whom were positive for cryoglobulins. HCV-MC patients were treated with sofosbuvir 400 mg and daclatasvir 60 mg once daily for 3 months. The serum cryoglobulins levels, complement 3 (C3), complement 4 (C4) (using ELISA assay kits) and rheumatoid factor (RF) (using immunoturbidimetric assay kit), were measured in the included HCV infected patients (to confirm HCV-MC diagnosis), in addition to quantitave HCV-RNA assays, using real time PCR. All these measurements have been done before stating therapy and 12, 24 weeks post-therapy for assessments of immunological recovery, viral load and SVR. Results: Significant increase in the serum cryoglobulin levels and RF with significant decrease in C3 and C4 serum levels were detected in only 63 out of 120 included HCV infected patients, upon whom the study has been completed. They showed significant decrease in their mean cryoglobulin levels from 41.47 µg/mL ±12.32 SD to 5.12 µg/mL ±3.59 SD then to 5.09 µg/mL ±3.02 SD, 12 to 24 weeks post-therapy respectively (p |
