الفهرس 
HEPATITIS C INFECTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Hepatitis C virus represent a major health problem in developed and developing countries, as 130 million individuals worldwide are chronically infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). In the absence of treatment, 20% of them will develop cirrhosis or cancer.
Interferon (IFN) has been widely used in clinical practice as an antiviral, anticancer, and immuno-modulatory agent. IFN is particularly effective in the treatment of chronic active hepatitis in patients who are positive for hepatitis C virus antibody
Myocardial impairments for which a causal relationship with HCV infection has been suspected to date includes dilated cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia cardiomyopathy, and chronic myocarditis.
In addition, IFN is known to induce cardiac adverse effects such as cardiac dysfunction, cardiomyopathy, various kinds of arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death.
The present study designed to investigate the effect of interferon alfa therapy on left ventricular systolic and diastolic functions in patients with chronic hepatitis C. It included 120 Egyptian cases, who attended Damietta Cardiology and Gastroenterology center, and they infected by HCV; they are candidate for treatment by interferon alpha. All included subjects were submitted to full history taking, clinical examination, laboratory investigations, twelve lead ECG: standard 12 lead ECC was recorded pre-and post interferon course to document the presence of significant ST changes suggestive of ischemic heart disease with assessment of QT interval & corrected QT interval; and Echocardiography: full 2-D, M-mode, Doppler and color flow mapping echocardio-graphy study was done pre-and post interferon course.
The results of the present study proved that:
1- Males represent 62.5% of all cases with chronic HCV candidate for treatment.
2- There are 16.7% of cases having hypertension and 26.7% had diabetes besides their chronic HCV infection.
3- There was statistically insignificant increase in cough, palpitation, chest pain, pulse, after treatment in comparison to their incidence before treatment.
4- QTc showed statistically non-significant increase after treatment in comparison to their values before treatment.
5- Echocardiographic changes showed statistically non- significant changes after treatment in comparison to before treatment.