Özet:

Objectives: Chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection considered to be associated with an increased risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, there is not enough data concerning this association in diabetics. Thus, this study investigated the effect of chronic HCV infection and its clearance on the CAD risk in diabetics. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective case-control study conducted at the Mustafa Kemal University, Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Hatay, between January 2010 and January 2015. The presence of CAD and its main risk factors such as age, sex, hypertension (HT), hyperlipidaemia (HL), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic renal failure were compared between 100 HCV infected diabetic patients and 100 uninfected diabetic controls. The HCV-infected patients were further divided into a viral clearance group and a persistence group, and the CAD prevalence was also compared between these two groups. Results: Patients with CHC were predominantly male (55% vs 39%) and predominantly older than 60 years of age (68% vs 51%) in comparison with controls. The HCV-infected group had a significantly lower prevalence of CAD, HT and HL compared with controls (p<0.001). Furthermore, no significant differences were found between groups with viral clearance and persistent viremia for the prevalence of CAD (p=0.80). Conclusion: Our data suggested that chronic HCV infection might be a protective factor against CAD and successful HCV eradication may not increase the risk of CAD in diabetics. These findings indicate a need for additional studies to clarify the effects of HCV infection and its clearance on the risk of CAD in diabetics.

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