1Zeinab N. Said, 2Mohammed A. Nouh and 1Azza Ghanem
1Microbiology Department, Faculty of Medicine for Girls, Al Azhar University and the 2Tropical Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Al Menoufia University, Egypt.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the leading cause of chronic hepatitis in humans. The objective of this study is to know if the study of peripheral blood CD4+/CD8+ profile before and after interferon treatment of patients with anti HCV positive chronic liver disease (CLD) could predict the response to treatment. Twenty five HCV antibody positive patients, 19 with chronic hepatitis and 6 with active cirrhosis, were treated with recombinant alpha 2 interferon three times/week and Ribavirin 600 mg/day orally for 12 weeks. Serum enzymes and viral load were measured. CD4+/CD8+ profile was evaluated and the results were analysed by the flowcytometer. Statistical analysis of the results showed that, the absolute counts of CD4+ and CD8+ cells do not affect the pattern of response of interferon against HCV. CD4+ and CD8+ ratio differed significantly in responders vs. non-responders.