الفهرس 
VIROLOGY OF HEPATITIS C VIRUSOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Hepatitis C virus is positive-strand RNA virus and can replicate inside the liver. HCV exists as a multiple genotypes and is hyperendemic in Egypt. HCV infection causes acute symptoms in 15% of cases and not associated with jaundice. chronic infection develops in 85% of cases. Both acute and chronic HCV infection may affect the hepatic and extrahepatic tissues.
NAE was presented as a cutaneous marker for HCV infection. NAE was initially classified as one of the necrolytic erythemas, a group which includes acrodermatitis enteropathica (associated most commonly with zinc deficiency), necrolytic migratory erythema (associated most commonly with glucoagonoma syndrome), pellagra (associated most commonly with niacin deficiency) and others. A lot of clinical and histologic similarities exist between these disease entities.
Most reported NAE cases are HCV positive as proven by ELISA and PCR. Liver enzymes are elevated in all cases. However, there are few cases reported with negative hepatitis C-virus infection.
The aim of this work is to evaluate urinary zinc level in patients with necrolytic acral erythema.
To achieve this goal, 75 subjects divided into three groups were recruited. The first group included 15 patients suffering from NAE, the second group included 30 HCV-infected patients without any cutaneous manifestations as a control group and the third group included 30 healthy persons as a control group.
24-hour urinary zinc level was assessed for all subjects.
No statistically significant difference was found between NAE and control group regarding age, sex, smoking and DM.
Regarding liver enzymes, there was no statistically significant difference between NAE patients and HCV-infected patients.
The mean serum zinc for all patients was lower than the normal reference range and also was lower than that of both HCV patients control group and healthy control group.
There was no significant correlation between serum zinc and other personal, medical factors or lab characteristics.
As regards urinary zinc, its level was in the normal reference range although higher than that of both HCV patients control group and healthy control group but this was not statistically significant.
There was no significant correlation between urine zinc and other personal, medical factors or laboratory characteristics.
In conclusion, Serum zinc should be tested as an investigation in patients with NAE.
Urine zinc level is normal in NAE patients.
NAE can be predicted when serum zinc level falls below 0.54 mg/L or 24-hour urine zinc level exceeds 0.46 mg.
The following is recommended:
Further assessment of occult renal impairment in NAE patients.
Further studies on the pathogenic mechanisms of the development of NAE