Hepatitis C virus and its genotypes in patients suffering from chronic hepatitis C with or without a cryoglobulinemia‐related syndrome

作者：Marc Willems, Li Sheng, Tania Roskams, B. Ramdani, Jean‐Marc Doutrelepont, Frederik Nevens, Patrick Durez, Serge Treille, Michael Adler, Valeer J. Desmet, Johan Fevery, S.H. Yap · 发表于：Journal of Medical Virology · 年份：1994 · DOI：10.1002/jmv.1890440310 · 被引用次数：51 · 研究领域：Hepatitis C virus research、Liver Disease Diagnosis and Treatment、Hepatitis B Virus Studies

Recently, evidence has been presented for a possible association between hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and essential mixed cryoglobulinemia (EMC). Eleven consecutive patients with EMC and two with cryoglobulinemia type I were examined for the presence of markers of HCV infection. Eleven of 13 patients (10 with EMC and 1 with type I cryoglobulinemia) had anti-HCV antibodies (as determined by a second generation anti-HCV assay) and HCV-RNA in plasma or serum. HCV-RNA was also detected in liver biopsies of five patients. Genotyping showed that HCV genotype 1 was found in 10 of 11 patients with HCV-RNA (9 genotype 1b and 1 genotype 1a) and only one patient had HCV genotype 2. However, a similar high prevalence of genotype 1b (100%) was found in a group of 14 consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C, who had no clinical evidence of cryoglobulinemia. Concomitant infection was present in three patients with genotypes 2, 3 and 4, respectively. These findings stress the high prevalence of HCV infection in patients with EMC and further study shows that a difference in genotype prevalence was not found between HCV-related EMC and chronic hepatitis C without clinical manifestations of EMC.