Short- and long-term outcomes following percutaneous coronary intervention in hepatitis C virus seropositive patients

BACKGROUND: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is progressively recognized as a potential atherogenic condition that is associated with coronary artery disease (CAD). Factors that affect the cardiovascular system as diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia also may affect the outcomes following PCI. So, HCV infection may have an impact on the outcomes following PCI. We aimed to investigate the impact of HCV seropositivity on the outcomes following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). RESULTS: We conducted a multi-center prospective cohort study on 400 patients candidate for elective PCI using drug-eluting stents; 200 patients were HCV seropositive and did not received antiviral treatment, and 200 patients were HCV seronegative. The patients were followed up for 1 year for the development of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) and clinical in-stent restenosis. Multivariate Cox hazard regression analyses for MACEs and clinical in-stent restenosis at 12 months after adjustment for confounding factors showed that HCV seropositivity did not present a higher hazard upon MACEs (adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 0.74; 95% CI 0.41-1.32; p value 0.302), the individual cardiovascular outcomes (target lesion revascularization (TLR), target vessel revascularization (TVR), myocardial infarction (MI), cerebrovascular stroke (CVS), stent thrombosis, major bleeding, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), cardiac death, and non-cardiac death), or the incidence of clinical in-stent restenosis (adjusted HR was 1.70; 95% CI 0.64-4.51; p value 0.28) compared to seronegative patients. CONCLUSION: HCV seropositivity had no impact on MACEs, individual cardiovascular outcomes, or clinical in-stent restenosis following PCI for a 1 year follow-up period.