title: HIV co-infection accelerates decay of humoral responses in spontaneous resolvers of HCV infection.
abstract: Acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is primarily followed by chronic infection, while spontaneous recovery of HCV infection (SR-HCV) occurs in a minority of those infected. Identification of SR-HCV clinically depends on two combined indicators, persistently undetectable peripheral HCV RNA and positivity for anti-HCV. However, the characteristics of dynamic variation in anti-HCV antibodies in SR-HCV, especially in those patients co-infected with HIV, are still undefined. In this study, a cohort of patients infected with HCV through commercial blood collection practices was studied. We found that the annual decreasing rate of anti-HCV presented a gradually accelerated process in HCV resolvers. However, the variation in the decline of anti-HCV presented a slowly accelerated process within the early decrease stage and a gradually decelerated process within the latter decrease stage. In addition, we deduced that it expended approximately 16 years from natural HCV recovery to undetectable peripheral anti-HCV in HCV resolvers co-infected with HIV, while this time was estimated to be 20 years in SR-HCV without HIV co-infection. Our data indicated that the decay of anti-HCV was accelerated by HIV-related impairment of immune function. The prevalence of HCV infection may be severely underestimated in this large-scale retrospective epidemiologic investigation in an HIV-infected population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China; Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Long
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D060085:Coinfection / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000150:complications* / Q000276:immunology*; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000150:complications* / Q000276:immunology*; D018937:Hepatitis C Antibodies / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D018937:Hepatitis C Antibodies
keywords: CD4+T counts; HCV; HIV; anti-HCV antibodies; spontaneous recovery