Hepatitis C Virus infection could affect the pathogenesis of ischemic heart diseases in northern part of Japan.

AIMS: Previously, our group reported that lymphotropic hepatitis C virus (HCV) could induce various kinds of immune-dysfunctions. The immune-dysfunctions could cause vascular disease by inducing cryoglobulinemia. It has been reported that ischemic heart diseases might be caused by HCV. However, the infectious rate of HCV in ischemic heart diseases has not been clarified in the northern part of Japan. Therefore, we tried to determine HCV infectivity precisely in patients with ischemic heart diseases.

METHODS: The target pateints of this study were automatically selected using an electronic medical record system to exclude selection bias. Sixteen thousand four hundred eighty four patients with ischemic heart disease were included in this study. In addition, 12902 subjects who had received medical checkups were included as the control group.

RESULTS: The positive rate of HCV antibody among the patients with ischemic diseases in our hospital was 2.58%, which was significantly higher (p <0.01) than in the medical checkup patients (0.84%). The positive rate of HCV antibody in the patients with ischemic heart diseases in each age group was significantly higher than in the corresponding age groups of the medical checkup patients. The rate of chronic kidney disease in HCV antibody positive patients treated by percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) was significantly higher than that in HCV antibody negative patients treated by PCI(p = 0.02).

CONCLUSIONS: HCV might be associated with the pathogenesis of ischemic heart disease and HCV antibody positivity might be a risk factor for ischemic heart disease in northern part of Japan.