MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Naga Pothineni, MD
Division of Cardiology
University of Arkansas for Medical Science
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?
Dr. Pothineni: Hepatitis C is a blood borne
infection that is very common worldwide. Most pateints who contract
hepatitis C develop a chronic form on infection that progresses to liver
damage and eventually hepatocellular cancer. Coronary heart disease is a
worldwide problem as well. There has been interest in chronic
infections being a mechanism of progression of atherosclerosis
and coronary heart disease. We wanted to study the association of
coronary heart disease events in patients with hepatitis C. We conducted
a retrospective study of around 24,000 patients of which around 10,000
were hepatitis C positive. Our study showed that patients who have
hepatitis C have a higher incidence of coronary heart disease events
(myocardial infarction) when compared to patients who are negative for
hepatitis C. In our analysis, we found that hepatitis C positivity
is an independent risk factor for coronary events after adjusting for
traditional cardiovascular risk factors like age, hypertension, smoking
and diabetes.
Another interesting finding in our study was that patients with
hepatitis C have lower levels of cholesterol compared to patients
without hepatitis C. Low cholesterol levels in these patients do not
seem to be protective against future coronary heart disease events.
Read more... Labels: cardiac risk factors, coronary heart disease, low cholesterol