CHRONIC HEPATITIS C VIRUS INFECTION

Objectives: (1) To seek the association between chronic HCV infection and type 2 diabetes, mellitus. (2) To verify the effect of age, sex, socioeconomic status, obesity and presence of cirrhosis on the association of chronic HCV infection. Design. Case control study. Setting: DHQ Hospital, Faisalabad. Subjects: The subjects were divided into two groups. One was with positive anti-HCV antibody on ELISA method and other was without liver disease and negative for anti-HCV. Both the groups contained 500 subjects each and were selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Intervention: After a brief interview regarding age, residence, family history of diabetes, socioeconomic status, both the groups underwent weight and height measurements. The body mass was calculated according to the formulae. Ultrasonography of abdomen was done of all the patients of study groups to assess the liver status. Main outcome measures: Chi – squaretest was applied to see the association and then odds ratio was calculated to check the strength of association. Results: Diabetes mellitus was detected in 174 patients (34.8%) out of 500 patients in the group A as compared to 30 patients (6%) out of 500 patients in the group B. having chisquare value of 127.69 and significance of 0.000 with HCV +/ HCV- Odds ratio 0.120 and 95% CI0.079-0.181. Conclusions: There is strongassociation between HCV infection and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Severity of Liver Disease was strong associated factor.