Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Επιδημιολογία-Μεθοδολογία έρευνας στις βιοϊατρικές επιστήμες, την κλινική πράξη και τη δημόσια υγείαLibrary of the School of Health Sciences
Author:
Mouziouras Dimitrios
Supervisors info:
Αθανάσιος Πρωτογέρου , Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ (επιβλέπων)
Γκίκας Μαγιορκίνης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Ευαγγελία-Γεωργία Κωστάκη, Βιοστατιστικός PhD
Original Title:
Πιθανός ρόλος της χρόνιας λοίμωξης με τον ιό της ηπατίτιδας C ως παράγοντας αθηρωματικής νόσου: συγχρονική μελέτη σε ασθενείς-μάρτυρες
Translated title:
The possible role of heptitis C virus infection as a risk factor of atheromatosis: a case-control, cross-sectional study
Summary:
Hepatis C virus (HCV) infection is a global health issue, since over 70 million people are infected and almost half a million passes away due to disease’s complications, mostly hepatic. During the last two decades, scientific investigation has focused on the extrahepatic manifestations of HCV infection and especially the possible correlation of chronic infection with subclinical vascular damage, leading to elevated cardiovascular risk through different pathophysiological mechanisms. In order to investigate the aforementioned relationship, a cross-sectional case control study was conducted. In the study 30 pairs of participants matched for major cardiovascular risk factors were evaluated for arterial stiffness and subclinical atheromatosis. Arterial stiffness was measured through pulse wave velocity (PWV), while for atheromatosis, right and left intima-media thickness measurements (RIMT and LIMT respectively) and atheromatic plaques detection were performed. It was found that the number of atheromatic plaques observed in HCV patients was greater than controls (18 vs 10), with the difference being statistically significant, using x2 test (p-value=0.03), which was further validated through conditional logistic regression (p-value=0.05). As far as it concerns PWV, LIMT and RIMT no statistically significant difference was found between the comparing groups neither through Wilcoxon sign rank test (p-value = 0.07, p-value=0.21 and p-value=0.98 respectively), nor by using linear regression models with possible confounders (mean arterial pressure and heart rate) (p-value = 0.16, p-value=079 and p-value=0.46 respectively) .
Main subject category:
Health Sciences
Keywords:
Hepatitis C, Atheromatosis, Cardiovascular disease, Subclinical vascular damage, Carotid femoral pulse wave velocity
