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Abstract
Atherosclerosis is a progressive disease that begins in childhood and has clinical manifestations in middle to late adulthood. It is a degenerative process because of the accumulation of lipid and necrotic debris in the advanced lesions.
The form and content of the advanced lesions of atherosclerosis demonstrate the results of three fundamental biological processes.
These are:
(1) Accumulation of intimal smooth muscle cells together with variable numbers of accumulated macrophages and T-lymphocytes.
(2) Formation by the proliferated smooth muscle cells of large amounts of connective tissue matrix.
(3) Accumulation of lipid in the form of cholesteryl esters and free cholesterol within the cells as well as in the surrounding connective tissue.
The distribution of lipid and connective tissue in the atherosclerotic lesions determines whether they are stable or at risk of rupture or thrombosis.
Major coronary artery disease risk factors include: dyslipidemia, hypertension, tobacco use, diabetes mellitus, family history, and homocysteinemia.
Infectious agents are now being implicated more frequently as a risk factor for atherosclerosis. Several micro-organisms including Cytomegalovirus, Chlamydia pneumonia and Helicobacter pylori have recently been linked to the pathogenesis of coronary atherosclerosis and restenosis after intervention.
The current study aimed to detect possible association between infection with HCV (which was detected by ELISA) and development of coronary artery diseases.
One hundred and forty individuals were involved in this study , 77 of them with coronary artery disease diagnosed by coronary angiogram and the rest 63 with normal coronary artery angiography .
In the patients group 26% ( 20 patients ) had a positive ELISA test for HCV , while 12.7 % ( 8 patients ) of control group had a positive ELISA test for HCV .
The subjects were subjected to: thorough history taking, clinical examination, twelve lead ECG, and laboratory investigation including detection of antibody for HCV by ELISA and HBsAg and coronary angiography.
Statistical analysis of the resulting data was carried out using chi - square test and student’s t- test.
The result of this study showed a significant association between HCV and coronary artery disease where there is increase in number of the HCV infected patient (detected by ELISA) among coronary artery diseased patients, in our study they were 26% in patient group versus 12.7% in the control group.