Renal involvement in patients with hepatitis C virus infection.
BACKGROUND
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a hepatotropic virus causing a variety of extrahepatic immunological manifestations and is a risk factor of a variety of extrahepatic diseases, such as mixed cryoglobulinemia and membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN), which is the most common glomerulonephritis. The aim of this study was to evaluate renal involvement in HCV-infected patients.


METHODS
A total of 300 randomly-selected HCV antibody-positive outpatients at the HCV clinic of Shariati hospital were enrolled. Serum creatinine was measured and glomerular filtration rate was estimated accordingly. Urine proteinuria was measured in 24-hour urine samples.


RESULTS
The patients were 249 men (83.2%) and 51 women (16.8%) with a mean age of 37.8 +/- 11.7 years (range, 18 to 70 years). Proteinuria was found in 12 HCV antibody-positive adults (4%), 1 of whom underwent biopsy. He was a 55- year-old man with a 4-month history of facial and lower extremities edema and 3-g proteinuria with a normal kidney function (glomerular filtration rate, 85 mL/min) and normocomplementemia. Kidney biopsy specimens showed MPGN. The frequency of low glomerular filtration rate was 0.7% (2 patients) in the HCV antibody-positive adults. There was no significant relationship between HCV seropositivity and low glomerular filtration rate.


CONCLUSIONS
Our observations showed renal involvement in HCV antibody-positive patients. Among immune complex glomerular kidney diseases, MPGN without cryoglobulins is thought to be the most common in these patients.
Saddadi
Fereshteh
F
Division of Nephrology, Department of Medicine and Nephrology Research Center, Shariati Hospital, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. saddadi_md@yahoo.com
Attari
Fatemeh
F
Najafi
Iraj
I
Gangi
Mohammad Reza
MR
Hakemi
Monirsadat
M
Amini
Manochehr
M
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003404:Creatinine / Q000097:blood; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005919:Glomerular Filtration Rate; D015432:Glomerulonephritis, Membranoproliferative / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology* / Q000821:virology; D019698:Hepatitis C, Chronic / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D007105:Immune Complex Diseases / Q000209:etiology* / Q000821:virology; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D011507:Proteinuria / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D055815:Young Adult
D003404:Creatinine