الفهرس 
? Hepatitis C Virus in Peripheral Mononuclear Cells (Occult HCV)Only 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
H
epatitis C Virus (HCV) infection is a global health problem. OCI is characterized by presence of HCV-RNA in the liver tissue only and/or Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) with undetectable HCV-RNA or antibodies in the serum. Support for presence of this entity comes from the observation that HCV, even though a hepatotropic virus, can replicate as well at extrahepatic sites, including peripheral blood mononuclear cells.
The current study evaluated the hidden infection of hepatitis C virus among patients on maintenance hemodialysis with negative ELISA and PCR by using PCR in mononuclear cells as a marker in these patients. Our study was done in Sharkia Governorate.
In our study, the 60 included subjects had an average age of 48.27 years with range from 19 to 77 years and included 33 males (55%) and 27 females (45%). The subjects had average dialysis duration of 6.51 ± 4.10years with range from 7 months to 19 years.
In the current study the most common cause of end stage renal disease among the studied cases was hypertension 50%, followed by diabetes 20%, recurrent kidney infection 5%, obstructive uropathy 5%, polycystic kidney disease 5% and unknown cause 15%.
We showed that 93.3% had previous blood transfusion most frequent from 5 to 8 times (43.3%).
In our study, 36.7% of the studied group had mild ascites, 61.7% had mild LL edema, 36.7% had jaundice, 50% had splenomegaly, 36.7% had hepatomegaly and 46.7% had coarse liver.
In our study, 5% of the studied group had bilharziasis. Regarding AMA 6.7% had positive AMA. Also 5% had positive ANA and 5% had positive ASMA. No cases had Hb surface or core antigen or HIV infection.
We found that no cases had positive HCV ab or positive PCR for HCV-RNA in plasma while 11.7% had positive occult HCV and positive PCR for HCV-RNA in PMNCs with mean viral load 166.99.
Our results showed no significant differences between patients with negative HCV and patients with positive HCV regarding age, sex and duration of hemodialysis.
Our study showed no statistically significant differences between occult HCV cases and negative cases in frequency of blood transfusion. There were no statistically significant differences between occult HCV cases and negative cases in splenomegaly, hepatomegaly or coarse liver but there was a statistically significant increase in frequency of severe ascites, moderate LL edema and jaundice among occult HCV cases compared to negative cases.
Also, there were no statistically significant differences between occult HCV cases and negative cases in urea, creatinine, ALT, AST or albumin. In our study total bilirubin>1.7 and direct bilirubin >0.4 were significant predictors for the presence of occult HCV in hemodialysis patients.
Our study showed that there were no statistically significant correlation between viral load in PBMCs and laboratory findings among occult HCV cases.