Direct-Acting Antiviral Therapy Effect on Extrahepatic Rheumatic Manifestations in Egyptian Chronic Hepatitis C (HCV) Patients

Abstract

Background: Hepatitis C virus infection is an important cause of many rheumatic diseases, especially cryoglobulinemic vasculitis, fibromyalgia, arthralgia and Sicca Syndrome. Direct acting antivirals are found to be highly effective for the treatment of chronic Hepatitis C virus infection. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical and serological course of extrahepatic rheumatic manifestations in chronic hepatitis C Egyptian patients after treatment with new direct-acting antivirals. Patients and Methods: This study was carried out on 60 Egyptian patients with chronic hepatitis C with one or more of the HCV-related rheumatic manifestations treated with sofosbuvir (400 mg daily) plus daclatasvir (60 mg daily) as a direct-acting antivirals for 3 months. All patients were subjected to clinical and serological course of extrahepatic rheumatic manifestations evaluation. Results: show that among the 60 patients, 21 patients (35.0%) met the criteria of mixed cryoglobulinemia syndrome (MC), 19 patients (31.7%) were complaining of arthralgia, 17 patients (28.3%) were complaining of fibromyalgia and 3 patients (5.0%) were complaining of Purpura without other criteria of mixed cryoglobulinemia syndrome. Complete clinical response was achieved in a significant number of patients with mixed cryoglobulinemia syndrome (MCS), the results also show significant clinical improvement in patients with fibromyalgia, arthralgia and purpura. Significant reduction but not complete normalization in auto-antibodies at short term follow-up was observed. Conclusion: It could be concluded that sustained virologic response correlates with clinical and immunological improvement in most patients with extrahepatic rheumatic manifestations among the studied group of chronic hepatitis C Egyptian populations.