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Abstract
Egypt has possibly the highest HCV prevalence in the world; 10%–20% of the general populations are infected and HCV is the leading cause of chronic liver disease and Hepatocellular carcinoma CD81 is an essential coreceptor for HCV. The susceptibility to HCV infection depends on a critical quantity of CD81 molecules. CD81 belongs to the tetraspanin superfamily.CD81 is express on different lymphocyte subsets This work aims to measure and compare between the dynamics of CD81 expression on CD4 (+), CD8 (+), CD19 (+), and CD56 (+) lymphocyte subtypes in relation to interferon-α (IFN-α) based antiviral treatment in chronic hepatitis C patients. Also, to correlate CD81 expression on lymphocyte subtypes with the corresponding HCV-RNA load The study included 44 patients with chronic HCV liver diseases 34 males and 10 females, All patients were treated with a combination of Pegylated IFN- α -2a 180 μg subcutaneous once weekly and ribavirin tablets 800–1200 mg/day for 48 weeks. In addition to control group included 20 apparently health with sex and age matched volunteers The present work showed the following CD81 expression (%) on (CD4 + T-helper cells & CD8 + T-Cytotoxic) & CD81 intensities (MFI) (CD4 + T-helper cells, CD8 + T- Cytotoxic, CD19 + B cells & CD56+ natural Killer cells) were significantly higher and upregulated in interferon (INF) responders & non responders’ patients with chronic HCV at the start of treatment when compared with controls.