Development of type 1 diabetes mellitus during interferon alfa therapy for chronic HCV hepatitis

Report of the Expert Committee on the Diagnosis and Classification of Diabetes Mellitus

“…Examples include nicotinic acid and glucocorticoids (77,78). Patients receiving ␣-interferon have been reported to develop diabetes associated with islet cell antibodies and, in certain instances, severe insulin deficiency (83,84). The list shown in Table 1 is not all-inclusive, but reflects the more commonly recognized drug-, hormone-, or toxin-induced forms of diabetes.…”

Peginterferon (PEG-IFN) Plus Ribavirin Combination Therapy, but neither Interferon nor PGE-IFN Alone, Induced Type 1 Diabetes in a Patient with Chronic Hepatitis C

“…Since IFN was first reported to be effective for HCV infection in 1986 (8), IFN has been widely used for patients with chronic hepatitis C. However, autoimmune diseases, such as autoimmune thyroiditis (9), rheumatoid arthritis (10), autoimmune hepatitis (11), systemic lupus erythematosus (12) and T1D (13) (14,15) and the present patient is likely such a case.…”

“…In 1992, it was documented for the first time that IFN therapy for chronic hepatitis C can induce T1D (13), and this was followed by similar case reports (reviewed in (19) (22,23). RBV administration should be avoided in patients with T1D-susceptible HLA.…”

Exponential increase of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) antibody titer after initiating and stopping insulin in a patient with slowly progressive type 1 diabetes

“…This case is similar to our case in that the GAD antibody titer increased suddenly and extremely, but our case was not positive for thyroid autoantibodies and showed no abnormalities in an ultrasound examination of the thyroid, suggesting she did not have AITD. It has been reported that GAD antibody titers increase after emerging acute pancreatitis [14] or interferon use [15], but neither serum pancreatic enzyme, abdominal ultrasound examination, nor pancreatic magnetic resonance imaging showed any abnormalities, and interferon was not prescribed in our case.…”