Aqueous flare and choroidal thickness in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus infection

Abstract

AbstractPurpose To investigate the status of blood‐aqueous barrier and to evaluate the subfoveal choroidal thickness (SCT) in patients with chronic never treated hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection without any anterior or posterior ocular disease.Methods A total of 80 eyes of 20 naive HCV patients (M:F=12:8; mean age: 46.9±7.23 years) and 20 healthy controls (M:F=10:10; mean age: 48.2±8.71) were examined. Partecipants underwent a complete ophthalmologic examination. Aqueous flare was objectively quantified by using the non‐invasive laser flare cell meter FC 1000 (Kowa, Tokyo, Japan), while SCT was evaluated by using enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (Spectralis OCT; Heidelberg Engineering GmbH). An unpaired t test with Welch correction was performed to compare flare values and SCT between HCV patients and controls, considering significance a p<0.05 and a Spearman’s rank correlation test was used to assess the relationship between aqueous flare and SCT in HCV subjects.Results HCV patients showed significantly higher aqueous flare (photon counts/ms) values (8.37±2.25 vs. 4.56±1.45; p=0.0001) and a significant increased SCT (µm) (362.7±46.5 vs. 320.25±32.82; p=0.002) than normal controls. Statistical analysis revealed that there was a positive correlation between aqueous flare values and SCT in HCV patients (r=0,688; p<0.0001).Conclusion These findings strongly indicate that impairment of the blood‐aqueous barrier and thicker choroids are features of HCV patients even if they have no ocular symptoms, and that choroidal thickness increases as the degree of subclinical inflammation of the anterior chamber increases.