Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology
Endocrine Abstracts (2015) 37 EP322 | DOI: 10.1530/endoabs.37.EP322

ECE2015 Eposter Presentations Diabetes (pathiophysiology & epitemiology) (80 abstracts)

Does hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has a role in the pathogenesis of diabetes mellitus in patients with β thalassemia

Vincenzo De Sanctis 2 , Ashraf Soliman 1 , Giancarlo Candini 3 & Heba Elsedfy 4


1Hamad Medical Centre, Doha, Qatar; 2Quisisana Hospital, Ferrara, Italy; 3St Anna Hospital, Ferrara, Italy; 4Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.


Introduction: In patients with β thalassemia major (TM) The interplay between liver siderosis and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection may facilitates the progression to insulin resistance (IR) and diabetes mellitus (DM).

Objectives: Many TM patients are infected with either HCV. Therefore, we aimed to explore if there is any association between DM and HCV-RNA positivity with different genotypes.

Patients and methods: 148 TM patients (age range: 15–53 years; 72 males and 76 females), 78 were HCV-RNA positive. Fifteen patients (10.1%) had type 1 DM. The HCV genotype was done using specific primers in all thalassemic patients with DM as well as in 46 non diabetic TM patients. Serum HCV-RNA was detected using a sensitive polymerase chain reaction assay. We assessed also the frequency of DM in TM patients with HCV+ and HCV-RNA−, and HCV+ and HCV-RNA+.

Results: The commonest genotype in TM patients with and without DM was 1b (Table 1). HCV genotype did not differ statistically between diabetic and non-diabetic thalassemic patients (χ2 test). In addition the frequency of DM did not differ among TM patients with HCV+ and HCV-RNA−, and HCV+ and HCV-RNA+. No significant correlation was observed between biochemical parameters (albumin, total protein, liver enzymes or INR) serum ferritin, IGF-I on the one hand and HCV-RNA status on the other hand.

Table 1.
HCV genotypeTM patients with diabetesTM patients without diabetes
1b9 (60%)27(58.6%)
1b/201 (2.1%)
24 (26.6%)14 (30.4%)
2a,2c 1 (6.6%)1 (2.1%)
3a1 (6.6%)3 (6.5%)

Summary: Our study did not show statistically significant association between DM and HCV-RNA positivity. larger studies are required for acquiring better knowledge about the pathogenic mechanisms that link HCV infection with abnormal glycemic abnormalities.

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