Background and aim: Chronic infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a huge problem both globally and at the level of the individual patient. Our aim is to detect the influence of vitamin D receptor gene polymorphisms (BsmI and Fok1) and vitamin D level in HCV patients under treatment with interferon.
Subject and methods: Blood samples were taken from 103 HCV patients all of them are genotype 4. They were divided into responders (n = 63) and nonresponders (n = 40) according to their response to interferon treatment. Also 120 subjects with matched age and sex were enrolled as controls. All subjects were subjected to history taking, general examination, liver function tests, hepatitis markers, HCV quantitation by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), DNA extraction from whole blood, PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) for genotyping, and quantitation of vitamin D level by ELISA.
Results: There were significant differences between responders and nonresponders in the mean values of vitamin D (P = 0.001) as well as the prevalence of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) BsmI (Bb) (P = 0.02). Meanwhile, no significant differences in Fok1 genotype between responders and nonresponders to interferon therapy of HCV patients in all genotypes [FF, Ff, ff) (P = 0.34, 0.091, and 0.43), respectively.
Conclusion: BsmI and vitamin D level in chronic liver disease patients are predictors of response to combination therapy of HCV.
Keywords: hepatitis C; polymorphism; vitamin D.
© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.