Celiac disease is characterized by a gluten-induced damage of the small bowel in sensitive individuals that may cause malabsorption. Non-intestinal inflammatory diseases may trigger immunologic gluten intolerance in susceptible people and the HCV virus may be considered as a suitable candidate. Interferon therapy could precipitate symptom onset in subjects with silent celiac disease. In fact, s...

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to determine the incidence of retinopathy in chronic hepatitis C patients treated with Pegylated interferon alpha 2a and Ribavirin. METHODS This descriptive case series study was conducted in Medical Unit II of the Jinnah Hospital Lahore from September 2012 to February 2013. One hundred chronic hepatitis C patients visiting Medical Unit II outpatient...

Some recent studies have found regression of liver cirrhosis after antiviral therapy in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related liver cirrhosis, but there have been no reports of complete regression of esophageal varices after interferon/peg-interferon and ribavirin combination therapy. We describe two cases of complete regression of esophageal varices and splenomegaly after interferon-al...

Autoimmune thyroid diseases are common manifestations of hepatitis C infection, exacerbated by interferon-based treatment. However, the occurrence and pattern of thyroid disease in the short/medium term following the completion of IFN-based therapy is relatively unknown and there are very few previous reports regarding the specific spectrum of autoimmune thyroid disease that may follow such the...

myelin basic protein (mbp) is one of the most important constituents of the cns myelin sheaths. it is supposed that an autoimmune response directed against mbp is crucial in the demyelination process in patients with multiple sclerosis. studies have proved that free anti-mbp level in csf of ms patients is declined when the patient entered into clinical remission. some researchers evaluate the c...

background and aims: chronic hepatitis c is one of the most important etiologies of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma worldwide. clinical condition of hepatic patients and the outcome of chemotherapy are under impact of hepatitis c virus (hcv) genotypes. therefore, hcv genotyping is important for prediction of success of chemotherapy and progression of liver diseases. methods: in this arti...

BACKGROUND Recent genome-wide association studies revealed the rs12979860 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the IL28B gene (CC genotype) to be the strongest pre-therapeutic predictor of therapy response to interferon alpha in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection. The favorable CC genotype is associated with significantly higher rates of sustained virologic response. No data exist o...

BACKGROUND Interferon therapy has been shown to induce lipid abnormalities. AIM We assessed the effects of interferon-beta on the lipoprotein profile and post-heparin lipase activities in 26 normolipaemic patients with chronic hepatitis C. METHODS Interferon-beta was administered subcutaneously at doses of 6 x 106 U (units) three times a week, over 6 months, and lipoproteins and post-hepari...

The primary goal of therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis B is suppression and long-lasting maintenance of hepatitis B virus DNA to its lowest possible level. The threshold of hepatitis B virus DNA level for therapy is > or = 10(5) copies/mL for HBeAg-positive patients and > or = 10(4) for those with HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B. Interferon alpha-2b, lamivudine, and adefovir-dipivoxi...

Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada (VKH) disease is a multisystem syndrome characterized by ocular (uveitis and retinal detachment), neurological (headache, tinnitus, and meningitis), and integumentary (vitiligo, alopecia, and poliosis) involvement. Although the pathogenesis of VKH disease is not well understood, an autoimmune T-cell response to a melanocyte-associated antigen is considered to be a cause of ...