Source
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital, Taipei Branch, Taipei, Taiwan; School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been linked to an increased risk of insulin resistance and carotid atherosclerosis.
AIM:
To investigate the association between HCV infection and stroke, and the effect of interferon-based therapy (IBT) on stroke risk in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients.
METHODS:
We conducted a retrospective cohort study that followed up 3113 subjects with a newly detected HCV infection and 12 452 age- and gender-matched subjects without HCV infection selected from a random sample of 10(6) beneficiaries from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Program up to 5 years. Use of IBT was defined as treatment with interferon alpha, pegylated interferon alpha-2a or pegylated interferon alpha-2b for at least 3 months. The hazard ratio (HR) for newly detected stroke was calculated for subjects with HCV compared to those without HCV, and for IBT-treated HCV patients compared to non-IBT-treated HCV patients while adjusting for possible confounding factors.
RESULTS:
The overall person-years of follow-up were 8624.11 in patients with HCV, 54 533.69 in patients without HCV, 666.65 in IBT-treated patients, and 7886.49 in nontreated patients. The multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for newly detected stroke was 1.23 for subjects with HCV compared to the age- and sex-matched subjects without HCV (adjusted HR = 1.23, 95% CI = 1.06-1.42, P = 0.008). Moreover, use of IBT significantly reduced the risk of stroke in HCV patients (adjusted HR = 0.39, 95% CI = 0.16-0.95, P = 0.039) after adjusting for known prognostic factors.
CONCLUSIONS:
Interferon-based therapy may reduce the long-term risk of stroke in patients with chronic HCV infection.