Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Cutaneous Polyarteritis Nodosa: A Retrospective Study of 16 Cases

Hepatitis C virus infection mimicking systemic lupus erythematosus: Study of hepatitis C virus infection in a series of 134 Spanish patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

“…A strong association between HCV and cryoglobulinemia (15,16) or Sjögren's syndrome (SS) (17,18) is now generally accepted; extrahepatic manifestations are especially frequent in those HCV patients with cryoglobulinemia, and some reports suggest that HCV infection may mimic the main clinical, histologic, and immunologic features of primary SS (19,20). A second group of autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis (21,22) or panarteritis nodosa (23,24), have a possible association with HCV. Finally, the role of HCV infection in other systemic autoimmune diseases, such as autoimmune thyroiditis (25), Behçet's disease (26), or antiphospholipid syndrome (27), is a subject of debate.…”

Angiogenic cytokines in serum and cutaneous lesions of patients with polyarteritis nodosa

“…[8][9][10] Moreover, a role for hepatitis C virus (HCV) in both subtypes of PAN has been detected. 11,12 The diagnosis is often problematic because the skin manifestations and their histologic findings in systemic and cutaneous PAN are identical. In this study, we compared many factors, including the serum levels and expression in skin lesions of angiogenic cytokines in patients with both subtypes of PAN.…”

Chronic HCV infection with Cryoglobulinemia, associated with Cutaneous Subacute Lupus

“…HCV has a persistent antigenic stimulation causing a clonal expansion of lymphocytes B which is associated with the production of autoantibodies (ANA, RF, Anticardiolipine, Cryoglobulin, Antithyroid Antibody, Anti-SMA, Anti-LKM (1) which play a significant role in the pathogenesis of these clinical manifestations. It has now been established that chronic HCV infection is the main cause of Type II Mixed Cryoglobulinemia and can mimic, Sjogren Syndrome (2), Rheumatoid Arthritis (3,4), Antiphospholipid Syndrome and Nodose Panarteritis (5) and Systemic Erythematous Lupus (6)(7) . The prevalence of HCV presence in patients with Systemic Erythematous Lupus is higher than that in healthy population, therefore it has been suggested that during the diagnostic procedures Discovering more in the patient history and the help of interdisciplinary consultations we concluded that an ensemble of these clinical manifestations actually results in chronic HCV infection.…”