Naga Venkata Pothineni
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, USA
Title: Hepatitis C infection and the risk of Coronary artery disease – the known and unknown
Biography
Biography: Naga Venkata Pothineni
Abstract
Hepatitis C is a common infection worldwide affecting approximately 3 million people in the United States. Though multiple infections have been associated with increased cardiovascular risk, the association between Hepatitis C infection and the risk of coronary artery disease remains unclear. A few previous studies have shown HCV infection to be atherogenic whereas others have shown it to be protective. We performed a retrospective study comparing the risk of incident cardiovascular disease in patients with and without HCV infection. We found that patients who are HCV positive (as detected by a positive HCV RNA) have a significantly higher risk of incident coronary artery disease even after controlling for various other risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia. In addition, we selected a subgroup of patients with and without Hepatitis C infection who had coronary angiograms done and compared angiographic burden of CAD using the modified Gensini score.