HEPATITIS-C VIRUS-INFECTION AND HEART-DISEASES - A MULTICENTER STUDY IN JAPAN

As a collaborative research project of the Committees for the Study of Idiopathic Cardiomyopathy, a questionnaire was sent out to 19 medical institutions in Japan in order to examine the possible association be tween hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and cardiomyopathies. Hepatiti s C virus antibody was found in 74 of 697 patients (10.6%) with hypert rophic cardiomyopathy (mean age, 57.7 years) and in 42 of 663 patients (6.3%) with dilated cardiomyopathy (mean age, 56.5 years); these prev alences were significantly higher than that found in volunteer blood d onors in Japan (2.4%, 50-59 pears of age, each p<0.0001). The prevalen ce was significantly higher in patients suffering from hypertrophic ca rdiomyopathy as opposed to those with dilated cardiomyopathy (p<0.01). The presence of HCV antibody was detected in 650 of 11,967 patients ( 5.4%) patients seeking care in 5 academic hospitals. Various cardiac a bnormalities were found among these patients, arrhythmias being the mo st frequent. These observations suggest that HCV infection is an impor tant cause of a variety of otherwise unexplained heart diseases.