Hepatitis C Virus Infection and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Background and aims: a growing pile of evidence supports the notion that pulmonary involvement is one of the extrahepatic manifestations of chronic hepatitis c virus (hcv) infection. the objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of hcv infection in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copo), and vice versa.methods: two cross-sectional studies were performed: 1. a prevalence study of hcv infection among patients with copo; 2. a prevalence study of copo among patients with chronic hcv infection. copo was diagnosed according to ats/ers guidelines. the prevalence of hcv infection in copogroup was compared with the result of a previous study which determined the prevalence of hcv infection in general population. prevalence of copoin patients with chronichcv infection was also compared to those with chronic hepatitis b virus (hbv) infection. results: the study included 108 patients with copo, 68 patients with chronic hcv infection, and 60 patients withchronic hbv infection. hcv infection was observed in 8.3% of patients with copo, and 1.2% of the control subjects (p= 0.000). the prevalence of copoamong patients with chronic hcv and hbv infection was 17.6%, and 5%, respectively (p=0.03). comparing copo-positive and -negative chronic hcv patients for risk factors for coporevealed that only the mean age was higher in copo-positive patients (60.8±9.1 years vs. 46.5±11.5 years, p=o.ooo). in multivariate analysis, age was found to be the only independent predictor of copoin hcv group.conclusions: patients with copo have increased prevalence of hcv infection, and patients with hcv infection, have increased prevalence of copo. copomay be an extrahepatic disease associated with hcv infection.