HCV and Autoimmunity in Rheumatic Diseases

HCV is a global health problem affecting mainly the liver and is often characterized by extrahepatic manifestations mediated by autoimmune reactions. Among these, arthritis and arthral-gia are most frequent, as well as the presence of cryoglobulinemia that may induce vasculitis and sicca syndrome. Thus, HCV appears to be a trigger for an autoimmune response, as demonstrated by the finding of autoantibody in a high percentage of serum of these patients. Therefore, it is im-portant that clinicians recognize these autoimmune manifestations as symptoms due to an autoimmune activity triggered by HCV in order to give the correct diagnosis and start an effective thera-peutic strategy. Therefore, clinical examination, searching of markers of infection, as well as au-toantibody patterns should be performed to make a correct differential diagnosis. The treatment should be based on antiviral drugs associated with immunosuppressive drugs according to autoimmune manifestations.