Glomerular Diseases as Extrahepatic Manifestations of Hepatitis C Virus Infection

Abstract

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a common and important health problem throughout the world not only leads to problems in liver, but also causes a variety of manifestations in almost all systems. HCV is a common virus found in chronic kidney disease. HCV can be the reason of both some pathologies which may lead to chronic kidney disease such as membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN), and also crucial problems in patients with end-stage kidney diseases undergoing dialysis treatment. There is a positive correlation between cryoglobulinemia, secondary MPGN and HCV infection. Treatment of HCV related glomerular diseases may lead to many problems.Tolerability of drugs such as (standard and pegylated) interferon and ribavirin are reduced due to impaired renal function and require appropriate dose adaptation for the patient. In this article, hepatitis C virus induced glomerular pathologies and their treatments are discussed.

Keywords

• HCV
• glomerular diseases
• membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis