HISTOPATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CHRONIC HEPATITIS-C VIRUS-INFECTION IN TURKEY

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the major cause of posttransfusion non-A, n on-B hepatitis. The aim of this study is to describe the morphological changes related to HCV infection found in Turkey and compare the simi larities and differences with the previous reports. Liver biopsies fro m 44 patients with HCV infection were studied. Chronic active hepatiti s was the most common (56.8 %) histopathological lesion. Most of the c ases (n=15, 34.1 %) with chronic active hepatitis showed mild activity and mean HAI was 5.5 in these cases. The presence of sinusoidal lymph ocytes (79.5 %) and Kupffer cell proliferation (68.2 %) were the most common histological features. We could not find any publication about histopathological characteristics of HCV infection from Turkey in MEDL INE database. This study shows that histopathological changes seen in patients with chronic HCV infection in Turkey is comparable with the l iterature, but more histopathological studies including genotyping of HCV and objective criteria to evaluate histopathological changes of ch ronic HCV infection are needed for definite conclusion.