Serum Antibodies against Hepatitis C Virus in Iranian Patients with Graves' Disease

Hepatitis c virus (hcv) infection has been associated with a plethora of immuneand autoimmune perturbations. a variety of conditions ranging from endocrinopathiesto different skin diseases has been described in hcv infection. the aim of this studywas to investigate the prevalence and clinical significance of hcv infection in patientswith graves' disease (go).a total of 55 patients with go (30 women, 25 men, mean age: 35.24 ± 12.27 years)and 50 control subjects (28 women, 22 men, mean age: 33.34 ± 11 .99 years) wereexamined. third generation elisa test was used for detection of antibodies to hcv inhuman sera, and anti-hcv seropositivity was confirmed by recombinant immunoblotassay (riba).all normal controls were anti-hcv negative whereas anti-hcv antibody waspresent in i patient with go and confirmed by western blotting. these results indicatethat there was no significant difference of anti-hcv antibodies between patients andcontrols.in this study no relationship was found between go and hcv infection, whichimply that hepatitis c virus has not a direct causal role in the pathogenesis of go,however, this does not rule out a hit and run virus induced disease.