BACKGROUND: Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is widespread in the world and highly prevalent in Egypt. Some reports suggest that HCV chronic infection could alter seminal parameters and reproductive hormones, so chronic HCV infection may influence the male fertility. Objective: we conducted this study to assess the possible effect of chronic HCV infection and its antiviral treatment on...

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection can lead to advanced liver disease (AdvLD), including cirrhosis, decompensated cirrhosis, and liver cancer. The aim of this study was to determine recent historical rates of HCV patient progression to AdvLD and to project AdvLD prevalence through 2015. We first determined total 2008 US chronic HCV prevalence from the National Health and Nutrition Evalua...

It has been suggested that the measurement of metronidazole clearance is a sensitive method for evaluating liver function. The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of plasma hydroxy-metronidazole/metronidazole ratios as indicators of dynamic liver function to detect changes resulting from the various forms of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. A total of 139 individuals were...

The imbalance of T-helper (Th) lymphocyte cytokine production may play an important role in immunopathogenesis of persistent hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. To know whether an imbalance between Th1 and Th2 cytokines is present in chronic HCV infection, serum levels of Th1 cytokines, interferon gamma (IFN-gamma) and interleukin (IL)-2, and Th2 cytokines, IL-4 and IL-10, were measured using en...

BACKGROUND The prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unfavorable and needs serum markers that could detect it early to start therapy at a potentially curable phase. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to determine the value of serum soluble tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor-IIα (sTNFR-IIα) in diagnosis of HCC in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. PATIENTS ...

Life Expectancy in PatientsWith Chronic HCV Infection and Cirrhosis ComparedWith a General Population Almost 3millionpeople in theUnited States are chronically infectedwith thehepatitis C virus (HCV).1 The life expectancy of patientswith chronicHCV infection is reduced comparedwith the general population, largely attributable to the development of cirrhosis, liver failure, andhepatocellular car...

patients and methods this cross - sectional study was conducted on 143 thalassemic patients with chronic hepatitis c, who were treated with a combination of peg-ifn and rbv regimen. the rs12979860 and rs8099917 polymorphisms were assessed as the most common polymorphisms near the il28b gene by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (pcr-rflp) method. objectives w...

A Sustained virologic response is durable in patients with chronic hepatitis C with peginterferon alfa-2a and ribavirin. The current standard therapy for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is the combination of pegylated interferon and ribavirin. The ultimate goal of treatment in patients with chronic HCV infection is to completely eradicate HCV in infected hosts, and prevent liver-relat...

results in patients with an svr, the serum levels of aminotransferases were decreased after hcv eradication. although general liver functional tests (albumin and total bilirubin) did not significantly change, the btr values significantly increased. however, in patients without an svr, an improvement in the btr value was not observed after ifn treatment. conclusions hcv eradication can improve t...

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection remains a serious burden to public health worldwide. Currently, HCV-infected patients could undergo antiviral therapy by giving pegylated IFN-alpha with ribavirin. However, this therapy is only effective in around 50% of patients with HCV genotype 1, which accounts for more than 70% of all HCV infection, and it is not well tolerated for most patients. M...