@article {17440,
	title = {Factors associated with severity and disease progression in chronic hepatitis C},
	journal = {HepatogastroenterologyHepatogastroenterologyHepatogastroenterology},
	volume = {45},
	number = {23},
	year = {1998},
	note = {Tassopoulos, N CPapatheodoridis, G VKatsoulidou, ADelladetsima, J KSypsa, VTouloumi, GNikandros, MHatzakis, AengGreece1998/12/05 00:00Hepatogastroenterology. 1998 Sep-Oct;45(23):1678-83.},
	month = {Sep-Oct},
	pages = {1678-83},
	abstract = {BACKGROUND/AIMS: Chronic hepatitis C appears to have a highly variable natural course with 20\% of patients developing cirrhosis within 20 years, while the majority of them run a relatively mild course. We studied the relationships of epidemiological, biochemical and virological features with histological severity (grade) and liver disease progression (stage). METHODOLOGY: Liver histology, serum HCV RNA level and HCV genotype were determined in a well-defined cohort of 152 consecutive (100 males, 52 females) patients with chronic hepatitis C. RESULTS: Patients with minimal or mild chronic hepatitis were significantly younger than those with moderate or severe chronic hepatitis (mean age: 41.1 vs 49.5 years respectively, p=0.003). On the other hand, patients with no or mild fibrosis compared to those with moderate or severe fibrosis and to those with cirrhosis were significantly more frequently males (73\%, 64\% and 43\%, p=0.01), parenteral drug users (36\%, 11\% and 11\%, p=0.01) and infected with other than 1b genotype (86\%, 52\% and 33\%, p<0.0001), significantly younger (mean age: 37, 48 and 58 years, p<0.0001) and had significantly lower HCV RNA levels (geometric mean: 6.9, 19.2 and 17.5 x 10(5) eq/ml, p=0.007). Multivariate analysis showed that stage was significantly related only to patient age (p<0.0001), HCV genotype (p=0.0025) and HCV RNA level (p=0.044). CONCLUSIONS: In chronic hepatitis C, histological severity seems to be associated only with patient age, while progression of the disease is mainly associated with patient age, HCV genotype and viremia level.},
	keywords = {Adult, Disease Progression, Female, Genotype, Hepacivirus/genetics, Hepatitis C, Chronic/complications/*pathology/virology, Humans, Liver Cirrhosis/etiology, Liver/pathology, Male, Middle Aged, RNA, Viral/analysis},
	isbn = {0172-6390 (Print)0172-6390 (Linking)},
	author = {Tassopoulos, N. C. and Papatheodoridis, G. V. and Katsoulidou, A and Delladetsima, J. K. and Sypsa, V and Touloumi, G. and Nikandros, M. and Hatzakis, A}
}
