Patients with chronic hepatitis C have both higher prevalence of diabetes mellitus type 2 (T2DM) and increased cardiovascular risk compared to never infected people. Sustained viral response (SVR) achievement led to decreasing incidence and prevalence of T2DM during the interferon era of HCV treatment. Currently, direct-acting antiviral drugs (DAA) are the gold standard for treating HCV infection, while yielding SVR in nearly all patients. In chronic HCV patients with T2DM (prediabetes most likely too), DAA therapy is associated with both better fasting glucose and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C) controls; thus reducing pharmacotherapy in a certain part of patients is possible. Papers mentioned in the review confirmed DAA role in both total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) increase. This alteration was accompanied by an increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and a decrease in triglycerides (TG) verified by most of the studies. However, the clinical significance of lipoprotein alterations caused by DAA therapy has not been explained yet. Moreover, DAA treatment of chronic hepatitis C improves hypertension control and atherosclerotic plaques. It is very likely that DAA therapeutic regimens will decrease both T2DM prevalence and cardiovascular risk in chronic hepatitis C patients; further research, however, is needed.

Background. Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a chronic autoimmune cholestatic liver disease with wide ranges of reported incidence and prevalence. Aim. To map the incidence and prevalence of PBC in European countries from 2000 through 2020. Methods. Following PRISMA recommendations, we searched the Medline and Scopus databases for studies with information on either the incidence or prevalence of PBC. After data extraction, we used a random-effects model to estimate both the pooled annual incidence rate and pooled point-prevalence rate and performed subgroup analyses to identify components contributing to between-study heterogeneity. Results. We performed a qualitative and quantitative analysis of 18 studies. The pooled point-prevalence rate was 22.27 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (95% CI: 17.98–27.01), and the pooled annual incidence rate was 1.87 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants (95% CI: 1.46–2.34). In the subgroup analyses, we proved that a small part of the between-study heterogeneity is significantly associated with a history of being part of the Eastern Bloc.

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