الفهرس 
INTRODUCTION AND AIM OF THE WORKOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The aim of the work is to study rheumatic and autoimmune manifestations in patients with hepatitis C infection and to correlate liver affection with rheumatic manifestations and autoimmune profile.
We concluded the following points from this study:
1- HCV infection is very common in Egypt even if it is silent.
2- Third generation ELISA is a good screening methods for detection of HCV infection.
3- Asymptomatic and vague prodromal stages of HCV infection may lead to under estimation of HCV infection hence under treatment and chronicity.
4- PCR is not recommended in all patients as it has no relation to age, sex, disease duration of liver or rheumatic illness.
5- PCR is indicated in suspected false positive results by ELISA, negative ELISA test is suspected HCV infection, and for measurement of drug efficacy.
6- PCR could predict general conditions of the patients as it was correlated with the presence of fatigue.
7- Genotyping has no relation to the development of severe liver affection or rheumatic manifestations so it is not recommended as routine investigation.
8- The role of detection of HCV genotyping may be used in drug efficacy, it could give an idea about route of transmission of HCV as in case of outbreak infection due to contaminated vaccine.
9- The most frequent mode of onset rheumatic illness in patients with HCV is dry eye and/ or dry mouth. Hence it is better to do ELISA as routine investigation in patients with dry eye and/ or dry mouth.
10- Neurological (49.3%) and skin (80%) manifestations (whether due to rheumatic or HCF) are very common in HCV infection.
11- Patients with arthritis had longer disease duration.
12- Patients with cutaneous vasculitis had a higher ALT level so presence of suspected vasculitic skin lesion in patients with HCV infection and elevated ALT level could direct doctor to do skin biopsy.