Hepatitis C viraemia and liver disease in symptom-free individuals with anti-HCV
- PMID: 1355801
- DOI: 10.1016/0140-6736(92)92234-7
Hepatitis C viraemia and liver disease in symptom-free individuals with anti-HCV
Abstract
There is controversy about clinical management of patients who persistently have antibodies to hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV) but who have no symptoms and signs of liver disease. We have taken liver biopsy samples from 23 such patients (16 of whom had normal alanine aminotransferase [ALT] values) to assess prevalence of liver disease and to see whether anti-HCV and HCV-RNA correlated with histological findings. 16 patients had histological evidence of chronic hepatitis, which was not predicted by serum ALT or by the pattern of specificity of anti-HCV. All 16 cases with hepatitis C viraemia (HCV-RNA detected by polymerase chain reaction), including 9 with normal ALT, had chronic hepatitis on biopsy (p less than 0.001), whereas 7 HCV-RNA-negative cases had normal liver histology. These findings indicate that serum HCV-RNA is a sensitive and specific marker of liver disease in anti-HCV-positive subjects, independent of ALT values, and challenge the idea of the existence of "true" healthy carriers of HCV.
Comment in
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Hepatitis C viraemia with normal liver histology in symptomless HIV-1 infection.Lancet. 1992 Nov 7;340(8828):1161. doi: 10.1016/0140-6736(92)93189-t. Lancet. 1992. PMID: 1359232 No abstract available.
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