Pathological features of liver tissue in autoantibody-positive chronic hepatitis C patients after plasmaphoresis

Objective To investigate the detection rate and features of autoantibodies in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients after plasmaphoresis, as well as the liver pathological features of autoantibody-positive CHC patients.Methods A total of 120 patients who were infected with hepatitis C virus after plasmaphoresis in the Hospital of Dingxi County and Dingxi Hospital of Infectious Diseases from January1992 to December 1995 were selected as test group; 11 healthy people from the same region were selected as control group.Autoantibody detection was performed for the 120 CHC patients, and liver pathological features were compared between the autoantibody-positive group (n = 44) and autoantibody-negative group (n = 76) of these patients.The t test was used for comparison of continuous data, and the chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical data.Results Of all 120 CHC patients who underwent plasmaphoresis, 44 (36.7%) were found to have serum autoantibodies, with antinuclear antibodies as the most common type (21.7%) .Compared with the autoantibody-negative group, the autoantibody-positive group had significantly higher scores of focal necrosis inside the hepatic lobules (2.11 ± 0.88 vs 1.64 ±0.88, t = 2.349, P = 0.021) and ductular reaction inside the portal area (1.86 ± 0.71 vs 1.13 ± 0.66, t = 4.217, P < 0.001) , as well as a significantly higher rate of interlobular bile duct injury (86.4% vs 55.3%, χ2= 12.129, P = 0.001) .There were no significant differences between the two groups in the degree of liver fibrosis and hepatic steatosis (both P > 0.05) .Conclusion Autoantibody-positive are common in CHC patients after plasmaphoresis, and autoantibody-positive patients tend to have more severe injuries of the liver.