[Hepatitis C virus infections: is it only e liver disease?]

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is widely diffused in general population, and the likelihood that an infected individual is affected by other disesases is high. A lot of epidemiological and explicative studies, even if with different levels of evidence, reported a potential effect of HCV infection -by direct and indirect mechanisms- on the pathogenesis of extrahepatic comorbidities related to dysregulation of the immune system, or cardiometabolic comorbidities like diabetes, neuropsychiatric disorders, chronic kidney disease, cardiovascular alterations, etc. Along this line, some studies observed a positive effect of viral eradication on extrahepatic diseases. However, these data are some time affected by selection bias and by the fact that they are mostly focuded on populations underwent interferon-based therapies. Until now only few data are available on the impact of viral eradication by direct antiviral agents on extrahepatic manifestations of HCV. Consistently, to draw conclusions, further validation studies are needed also stratifying the effect of viral eradication according to lenght and severity of both hepatic and extrahepatic damage.