The risk factors of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in HCV patients

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the more common causes of chronic liver disease in world with a variety of extrahepatic complications such as essential mixed cryoglobulinemia, membranoproliferative glomerulonep hritis, autoimmune thyroiditis, sialadenitis, and cardiomyopathy. IPF is present in patients with chronic HCV infection. However, there is little or no information on the yearly cumulative incidence and risk factors on the development rate of IPF in patients with HCV.

A research team led by Yasuji Arase from Toranomon Hospital of Japan addresses this question and this will be published on October 14, 2008 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology. In this study, they studied 6150 HCV infected patients who were between 40-70 years old (HCV-group). Another 2050 patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) were selected as control (HBV-group). The mean observation period was 8.0 ± 5.9 years in HCV-group and 6.3 ± 5.5 years in HBV-group.

They found that fifteen patients in HCV-group developed IPF. On the other hand, none of the patients developed IPF in HBV-group. In HCV-group, the cumulative rates of IPF development were 0.3% at 10th year and 0.9% at 20th year. The IPF development rate in HCV-group was higher than that in HBV-group (P = 0.021). The IPF development rate in patients with HCV or HBV was high with statistical significance in the following cases: (1) patients ≥ 55 years (P < 0.001); (2) patients who had smoking index (package per day × year) of ≥ 20 (P = 0.002); (3) patients with liver cirrhosis (P = 0.042). This result indicated that age, liver cirrhosis and smoking enhance the development of IPF in patients with chronic hepatitis C infection.

Reference: Arase Y, Suzuki F, Suzuki Y, Akuta N, Kobayashi M, KawamuraY, Yatsuji H, Sezaki H, Hosaka T, Hirakawa M, Saito S, Ikeda K, Kumada H. Hepatitis C virus enhances incidence of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. World J Gastroenterol 2008; 14(38): 5880-5886 http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/5880.asp

Correspondence to: Yasuji Arase, MD, Department of Hepatology, Toranomon Hospital, 2-2-2, Toranomon, Minatoku, Tokyo 105-8470, Japan. es9y-ars@asahi-net.or.jp Telephone: +81-3-3588-1111 Fax: +81-3-3582-7068

World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection and provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.

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