Effects of Direct Antiviral Agents on Hepatitis C Virus Arthropathy

The prevalence of HCV infection in Egypt is 14.7%. HCV is both a hepatotropic and a lymphotropic virus, it may exert a chronic stimulus on the immune system with both T and B lymphocyte alterations. In addition to cryoglobulinaemic vasculitis, HCV may trigger different immune-mediated extrahepatic disorders. A variable combination of HCV with other unknown enviromental and/or hostgenetic cofactors may lead to different clinical phenotypes that characterise HCV syndrome. Patients who have HCV -related arthropathy are accounted for by 2 clinical subsits: Rheumatoid-like arthritis and Cryoglobulin-related arthritis. Patients with mild arthritis, conservative manegement using analgesics with anti- inflammatory activity is recommended. In patients who have contraindications to their use, short term low dose prednisone is an option. In HCV infection with concomitant RA, ACR guidelines published in 2008 provided recommendations pertaining to these of DMARDs that are based on the severity of liver disease using the child- pugh- turcotte classification. For patients with severe cryoglobulinaemia such as severe debilitating disease or systemic in improvement, a combination of immunosuppressive and antiviral therapy is preferred. It has been found that antiviral therapy with interferon immunosuppressive and antiviral therapy is preferred. It has been found that antiviral therapy with interferon improves the musculoskeletal manifestations in HCV arthropathy. The DIrect antiviral agents seems very promising in treatment of HCV arthropathy. As HCV genotype 4 is the most common genotype in Egypt, the effective optional antiviral agents are sofosbuvir, daclatasvir, ledipasvir, paritaprevir, velpatasvir, ombitasvir and simeprevir.