[Endothelial dysfunction gene polymorphisms and the rate of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C].

Aim: To assess the association of the CYBA, NOS3, and MTHFR gene polymorphisms and a rate of fibrosis progression in chronic hepatitis C (CHC).
Subjects and Methods: One hundred and nine CHC patients with the verified stage of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis at its onset were examined. The disease duration was determined in all the patients and additional risk factors of liver lesion were absent. A group of rapidly progressive fibrosis comprised 55 patients with a calculated fibrosis progression rate of 0.130 fibrosis units/year or higher and 54 patients with a progression rate of less than 0.130 fibrosis units/year were assigned to a slow fibrosis group. A compression group consisted of 299 healthy blood donors. The polymorphism of the genes under study was determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis.
Results: The mutant TT genotype of the CYBA gene was significantly more common in the CHC patients with rapidly progressive fibrosis than in those with slowly progressive fibrosis (odds ratio for TT 9.09 at 95% confidence interval, 1.09 to 74.83; p = 0.0161). No significant differences were found in the distribution of the alleles and genotypes of the NOS3 and MTHFR genes between the groups of patients with slowly and rapidly progressive fibrosis.
Conclusion: The findings make it possible to regard the TT genotype of the CYBA gene from the C242T locus as profibrogenic and as one of the markers of the poor course of CHC.