Chou CH, et al. – This study sheds light on the impacts of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection on arterial stiffness. Findings highlighted an independent association of chronic HCV infection with peripheral arterial stiffness. Data reported no link between peripheral arterial stiffness and a marker of general inflammation (hsCRP) in these subjects.

Methods

• Researchers recruited 221 patients including 32 normal controls (NC), 72 NAFLD patients, and 117 subjects with HCV infection.
• They assessed arterial stiffness by peripheral arterial stiffness index, Compliance Index (CI) and central arterial stiffness index, Stiffness Index (SI) derived from digital volume pulse by photoplethysmography.
• They also measured levels of oxidative stress marker and inflammatory markers.

Results

• Findings demonstrated that the HCV group had significantly lower CI (4.8 ± 3.1 units vs. 3.9 ± 2.1 units vs. 3.0 ± 1.7 units; p for trend < 0.001) and higher SI (7.0 ± 1.6 m/s vs. 8.3 ± 2.3 m/s vs. 8.4 ± 2.3 m/s; p for trend = 0.001) compared to the NC and NAFLD groups.
• Multi-variate linear regression analysis revealed that CI was independently correlated with systolic blood pressure (beta = -0.202, p = 0.013) and HCV infection (beta = -0.216, p = 0.036).