Detection of hepatitis C virus genomic sequences in the cerebrospinal fluid of HIV-infected patients

✍ Scribed by Morsica, Giulia; Bernardi, Maria Teresa; Novati, Roberto; Foppa, Caterina Uberti; Castagna, Antonella; Lazzarin, Adriano

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 31 KB
• Volume: 53
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0146-6615
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1096-9071(199711)53:3<252::aid-jmv12>3.0.co;2-j

✦ Synopsis

To assess the presence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the central nervous system (CNS), HCV-RNA was sought in paired serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples of 21 HIV/HCV-positive patients: HCV-RNA was detected in the serum of 19/21 patients (90.4%), and in the CSF of five of the 19 serum-positive patients. The presence of HCV-RNA was confirmed in follow-up CSF samples available for three of these five patients. An identical HCV genotype was found in the paired serum/CSF samples. No correlation was found between the different genotypes and the presence of HCV in CSF of the individual patients.

HCV viremia levels measured by branched-DNA and quantitative PCR were not significantly higher in the CSF-positive cases than in the CSFnegative cases (P = 0.3, using b-DNA; 0.5, using quantitative PCR). This report shows the presence of HCV in CSF and raises the possibility that the CNS may act as a reservoir site for HCV.